It’s been so long since I actively disliked a book that I wasn’t quite sure what to do with myself. The more I tried to separate my dislike for the chIt’s been so long since I actively disliked a book that I wasn’t quite sure what to do with myself. The more I tried to separate my dislike for the characters and storytelling and try to analyze it impartially, the more I found myself saying, “Bugger this! Drink anyone?” to the empty air around me.

Crewel is a post-apocalyptic dystopian world in which women are oppressed and tightly controlled. It is a world where matter and people can be weaved and stitched through special looms that Spinsters use. This should have been right up my alley. It was definitely right up something, but it wasn’t my alley.

Unfortunately, Crewel is a heavily character-based novel. I say unfortunately because there isn’t a single character with more complexity or depth than a kiddie pool and certainly none of them are even a fraction of the fun. Even the main character, whose head we live in, is so vague and two dimensional that any actions and emotions she displays felt disconnected from the reality of the novel. This story, even in its most intense moments, was emotionless and the opposite of affecting. It was like watching a play only the stage is at the bottom of the cliff and you’re at the top. So far removed that you can see what the actors are doing but engaging in them or the story is impossible.

There are a number of characters the narrator expects us to care about: Elanor, Valery, Amie, Jost, Erik, Pryana. However, most of these characters barely even have a role. Most of Valery’s speaking lines come after the Great Tragedy that befalls her – and they’re still only a few lines. Elanor as well, while having a slightly bigger role, is little more than a convenient plot device and represents one of the only semi-positively written female characters. Her role is so tightly packed into being a convenient tell-machine for the narrator to pass information, and to resolve a later plot point that there is nothing else to her.

The plot itself is a hot mess with no direction or focus. It flits around distractedly, trying to accomplish everything and achieving nothing. Don’t even get me started on the ending! The main selling point of this novel is the weaving – which Adelice does almost none of since she spends more time making goo goo eyes are boys than she ever does interacting with women or doing the damn thing this book was named after.

This is made even worse when you consider the face that the romance in this book is justifiably scoff-worthy. There isn’t even enough material between them for one convincing romance. Since Adelice is about as interesting as wet cardboard, it’s hard to imagine anyone falling for her. Each boy barely fares better. Their personalities combined still wouldn’t save them from being inhumanely dull. They are just two more wooden puppets in a whole cast of wooden puppets.

For a novel that is supposed to be about the struggles of women in a highly patriarchal world, this novel was dreadfully sexist. When I spoke to a friend about this issue, they said, “I tend to disagree with a lot of the criticism re: the book being sexist, but think you could probably make a more compelling case.”

Well, buckle up your seatbelt, sunshine*! Here’s my case!

*Seatbelt not actually required.

Readers can and should make a deal about the slut-shaming and complete lack of positive female characters. That’s an issue all in itself. But then, I guess, one could also sweep that aside with justifications. Because there are unpleasant and horrible women out there – because women are people, and people come in a mixed bag. And a society so entirely preoccupied with purity would result in citizens slut-shaming girls for acting outside of those bounds. So there’s obviously an important discussion to be had on those topics, even though they are not definitely sexist on their own, only kind of sexist.

For me, the true test came when I considered what my Southern and Imaginary mother always told me and that is, “Honey cupcake, y’all should know that actions speak louder than words.” So true, Southern and Imaginary mother. So true. So whilst this book may have given lipservice to how unfair life was for women and how that TOTALLY wasn’t right or good, what service did the narration and plot actually have to say about women? Put it this way: When comparing the relevance and representation given to male and female characters in relation to their contribution to the novel, what does it say about women?

Almost every single male character we meet is important. Cormac, Jost, Erik are the three big ones. There are only a handful of other males with speaking roles in this book and they’re fairly neutral in their representation. People just doing their job. Only one male with a speaking role is depicted badly, which is a drunk, handsy official at a party – and he is still not portrayed worse than the woman trying to vie for his attention. At least, the characters narrating the situation focus on how disgusting she is, while he only gets a passing mention. I think there may be a waiter who has a speaking role for the purpose of showing how segregated and unfair they world is, but that’s it.

Compare that to the novel’s complete and utter lack of focus on women – which is pretty disgraceful for a novel that’s supposed to be about women’s struggles in a patriarchal society. The only important women in this book are Adelice and the women who torment her. We are introduced to whole batches of women, who are immediately dismissed by the character and text as meaningless and valueless. The girls from Adelice’s hometown? Just simpering morons waiting to get mated. Even her own younger sister cares for little else. It seems no one is as deep and thoughtful as Adelice. Then when she enters Coventry with a large group of her peers, they are immediately shown to be jealous and power-hungry, but ultimately completely inconsequential. We don’t meet any of them ever again whilst Jost, Erik and Cormac receive the large bulk of Adelice’s, and the narrative’s attention. Because they’re what really matters, ya know? What the menfolk are doing. The only exception to this rule, because it is a pattern repeated yet again when Adelice joins the Spinsters who are also cliquey and immediately dismissed from the narrative as pointless and worthless like the literally dozens of other women we meet, is Maela and Pryana. Maela is a power-hungry psychopath and Pryana is a power-hungry, vicious, idiot. Both are stupid and extremely ineffective at what they do. Female solidarity doesn’t exist in this novel. Unless you’re referring to the convenient plot-device that is Elanor. She is the sole exception.

Add to this the fact that the women in this novel all act inexplicably irrational. There is evil Cormac, and evil Maela and evil Pryana. Only one of them acts intelligently and with rationale – I’ll let you pick which one. You can depend on the evil women to be emotional, lashing out and sometimes hysterical. Behaviour that is never depicted in the men. For example, Maela asks Adelice to remove a strand from the weave. The strand is a person who doesn’t need to be removed and doing so could harm the weave, so she refuses. Maele takes her scalpel and tears into the weave out of anger. It turns out this was a school where Pryana’s sister lived. So Pryana… blames Adelice?! Because that totally makes sense. And she spends the rest of the novel irrationally tormenting Adelice. Valery, similarly blames Adelice for things that are entirely out of her control. It is so manufactured and senseless that it made the novel ridiculous. Almost as ridiculous as the fact that Adelice spent the novel entirely focused on boys. The plot went something like this:

Adelice’s family dies

Cormac

meets horrible girls

boy

boy

Cormac

stuff about weaving

boy

boy

boy

boy

Cormac

More horrible girls

boy

boy

boy

Cormac

Cormac

Even Loricel, supposedly the one, decent woman in power in this book is little more than a caricature. You can’t claim a feminist text when the narration itself, despite constantly being surrounded by women, decides that all the male characters are so much more interesting and worth focusing on. When the few male characters are afforded exponentially more important roles than any of the many, many female characters – many of whom don’t even get the honour of a name or mention outside of just Horrible Female #35 who says horrible thing to Adelice. When the rate of decent male character so far outstrips the demonstration of decent female characters that there isn’t even room for comparison, you have a problem. You have a book that wants to say something about women, but ignores them in favor of focusing on men.

Whether or not you enjoy this book depends on what you were expect­ing to begin with. No Really. Look at that cover, reread the syn­op­sis and decideWhether or not you enjoy this book depends on what you were expect­ing to begin with. No Really. Look at that cover, reread the syn­op­sis and decide right now what you’re hop­ing from this book. Is it:

a) A dark, twisted retelling of Alice in Won­der­land with zom­bie creatures?

b) A high school melo­drama about ghost/zombies with no real Alice in Won­der­land connection.

If you thought B then good for you. Read this book. If you thought A then back the hell off now. This is not the book for you and you will likely be disappointed.

I thought A. From the title and the vague syn­op­sis I believed that this would be an Alice going into zom­bieland and deal­ing with a dark, unset­tling, gory ver­sion of Won­der­land with many of the themes and sym­bol­ism from the orig­i­nal story mod­ern­ized and reimag­ined in this book. I thought this was going to be a book ver­sion of Amer­i­can McGee’s Alice.

Now, just to make it clear. It’s not a book or author’s fault if that book was not what the reader imag­ined. But I do think the title and syn­op­sis is mis­lead­ing con­sid­er­ing a num­ber of peo­ple, myself included are prob­a­bly a lit­tle con­fused about what this actu­ally is. The syn­op­sis is vague, men­tion­ing only revenge and mon­sters and a bad boy.

So let’s clear this up. This is what Alice in Zom­bieland is:

Alice’s entire fam­ily die in a car crash. Her father, who always believed in zom­bies (they aren’t phys­i­cal zom­bies. They’re incor­po­real, evil spir­its that attack and eat your soul) is eaten. Alice, orphaned, goes to a new school where stu­dents act strangely. In par­tic­u­lar, a stu­dent name Cole who is all badass and secre­tive. Instalove, love tri­an­gles, spe­cial girl with spe­cial pow­ers later, blah blah blah THAT is the story.

In fact it felt, while read­ing, that the Alice in Won­der­land ele­ments were shooed in at the last minute and didn’t feel as though they were native or even rel­e­vant to the story. Cer­tainly, whilst the author links to a cou­ple of small, incon­se­quen­tial details like the white rab­bit and the Cheshire cat, none of the themes of Alice seemed touched upon or incor­po­rated into the story as a whole. Which is a shame because the com­ing of age in a strange and crazy world that every­one thinks is nor­mal theme would have worked so extremely well IN A YOUNG ADULT NOVEL ABOUT ZOMBIES!

But instead of talk­ing about what I wanted the book to be – what is the actual book like? Well, just not for me. Showal­ter is tran­si­tion­ing from adult para­nor­mal romance to YA and I don’t think it was suc­cess­ful. She built Cole off the foun­da­tion of a roman­ti­cized Alpha male – if that’s your thing fine, but I think the effect is lost when the audi­ence is reminded that this is a six­teen year old boy. Like when they’re at the club and intim­i­dat­ing grown men away from the girls by growl­ing. Yeah…

Alice is a rea­son­able char­ac­ter, though not one I had a great deal of inter­est in. She sim­ply capit­u­lated too much to Cole’s cave­man­ish ten­den­cies to keep my inter­est. The gen­eral cast is alright but it is quite siz­able and bur­dens the plot with a great deal of what felt like unnec­es­sary pos­tur­ing and con­vers­ing over things the audi­ence already knows.

I some­what expected bet­ter from the writ­ing con­sid­er­ing this is far from Showalter’s debut novel. The action scenes did not feel well real­ized and the final bat­tle was amaz­ingly short and anti­cli­matic. There was a focus on the romance. To be fair, it’s by no means a single-minded focus, sim­ply too much for me con­sid­er­ing I had no invest­ment in their rela­tion­ship to begin with. Instalove is not a plot device that I like. I never felt that I cham­pi­oned the rela­tion­ship between these two char­ac­ters because it never seemed to me that they had any chem­istry to begin with or even liked each other – at all.

My basic advice before buy­ing this book would be to read as many reviews of it as you can by peo­ple whose opin­ion you trust, decide if it is some­thing that’s going to appeal to you and read the sam­ple online before you purchase.

Basi­cally, would it have been too hard to have a story where Alice and the Mad Hat­ter throw down in a knife fight? Really, guys? REALLY?!...more

I don’t read many books that I would rate 1 star these days. I seem to have mas­tered my pref­er­ences and hit a stride of excel­lent books – or at leI don’t read many books that I would rate 1 star these days. I seem to have mas­tered my pref­er­ences and hit a stride of excel­lent books – or at least mostly read­able books.

Admit­tedly I only made it fifty-six pages into this book before I threw my hands up in dis­gust and tossed a pil­low at the wall – so I sug­gest you take that into account when decid­ing whether to buy this book.

Why did I stop reading?First rea­son:

The death of a token character

We didn’t know her long enough, but I’m pretty sure she could play base.

Right off a POC char­ac­ter is killed and whilst that would be annoy­ing in its own right, since killing off POC char­ac­ters is a frus­trat­ing cliche in books, TV shows and films, this was even more annoy­ing. Firstly because her descrip­tion was extremely stereo­typ­i­cal – to the point that she was less of a char­ac­ter and more of a car­i­ca­ture. Per­haps even worse and more degrad­ing is that there was no real lament to her death. It was used as a story pro­gres­sion so that the male pro­tag­o­nist could wax lyri­cal about how beau­ti­ful and brave the female pro­tag­o­nist for try­ing to save the dying POC char­ac­ter. I kid you not. A girl is dying in a ter­ri­fy­ing, vio­lent, hor­ri­fy­ing way and this is what he’s thinking:

“It’s just that… she doesn’t look as though she needs help. Her pale face is con­torted with anger. Not fear. Not dis­tress. Just fury. Her white hair floats like an aura, jerk­ing in delayed reac­tion with each of her capa­ble movements.”

Like I said – a girl just died and he’s hav­ing a hard on for Emma. And even worse, we’re sup­posed to be hav­ing a hard on for how awe­some Emma is. The text is all about Emma.

In fact, Chloe’s death seems to be noth­ing but an agent for mak­ing us sym­pa­thetic for Emma. It felt cheap and dirty. Sure, tak­ing on a bull­shark is a seri­ously awe­some thing to do. Almost as awe­some as that time I wres­tled a croc­o­dile. But let’s not get off track here. When sit­ting down and plan­ning how to make a main char­ac­ter rock super hard, I could think of a hun­dred ways that didn’t involve cre­at­ing a token char­ac­ter, imme­di­ately killing her off and then using that death to wank about how awe­some the pro­tag­o­nist is.

I mean, first of all… gross from an imagery point of view. Sec­ond of all, holy flip­ping duck twat, Bat­man, way to be offensive!

Sec­ond reason:

The sex­ism.

There’s noth­ing wrong with cre­at­ing a sex­ist soci­ety. How­ever, there is some respon­si­bil­ity when doing so. That the writ­ing doesn’t actu­ally sup­port or roman­ti­cize or give tacit approval for the sex­ism is a good start. Of Posei­don fea­tures a heav­ily misog­y­nis­tic mer­maid soci­ety. And as such, the male char­ac­ters act like a bunch of misog­y­nis­tic dicks. Once again, com­pletely under­stand­able. But then it’s when every­one else just kind of goes along with that and doesn’t see a prob­lem that my eye started to twitch. And then when some pretty out­right pater­nal­is­tic bull­crap takes place, I started see­ing red. Like when a stalker mer­maid arrives for a female char­ac­ter, Rayna. They are mated against her will and her refusal and hatred of him is treated as a com­i­cal device in the story – just her being a fickle and child­ish girl – not actu­ally a woman rebelling against a sys­tem that doesn’t allow her to choose her mate or even requires her to be present for the cer­e­mony. She’s angry at him because they were child­hood friends and he’s always known that she never wanted to mate. He went behind her back, asked her Dad and orga­nized for them to be mated. She’s pissed at him. Nat­u­rally. Per­son­ally, I would have seduced him out onto an iso­lated locale and impaled him on a rock. Rayna’s anger and hatred toward him is just laughed off by every­one. Includ­ing her brother.

Excuse me? EXCUSE ME!? What the ever lov­ing fuck?! Oh, I see. Women in this world don’t know what they want until the smarter, bet­ter men come along and show them. Right. RIGHT.

Then there’s Gallen who is just sex­ist plain and sim­ple. He dis­misses his sis­ter, does not dis­cuss the infor­ma­tion he’s work­ing on with her – but will with her mate – another man. I am told that he takes over Emma’s life and treats her much like a bit of bag­gage in the name of tak­ing care of her. I didn’t see any pro­gres­sion toward a less sex­ist Galen hav­ing any kind of rev­e­la­tion that women weren’t all a bunch of objects to be ordered around like sheep.

You expect women to be unrea­son­able barn­yard ani­mals too busy mas­ti­cat­ing and going into heat to do any rea­son­able and log­i­cal thought, fine. But think like that and try to be a roman­tic inter­est in a YA novel I’m read­ing? No way. Sorry, Galen. You are the weak­est link. Goodbye.

Third rea­son:

The writ­ing.

I truly dis­liked the writ­ing. Not only was it incred­i­bly telling and flat but the story also jumped awk­wardly between the first per­son nar­ra­tive for Emma and the third per­son nar­ra­tive for Gallen. It did not feel pol­ished or fin­ished at all.

“Stop!” she yells.

Galen stops. But Emma’s not talk­ing to him. She’s talk­ing to the shark.

And the shark stops.

Emma wraps both arms around Chloe and hugs her to her chest, lean­ing her friend away from the attack. “You can’t have her! Leave her alone! Leave us both alone!”

The shark turns, saun­ters away as if sulking.

SHARKS CAN SAUNTER?! AND SULK!?

I know what she’s doing here and that’s being abrupt and edgy with a tense moment. But I just trip over those sen­tences every time I read them. And a lot of this book is like this. Part of me wants to take a red pen to it and just clean it up a bit. It’s not like Banks is nec­es­sar­ily a bad writer – but that her writ­ing isn’t smooth. There’s no poetry or rhythm to it. Just these jar­ring, awk­ward sen­tences that hurt my brain.

Fourth rea­son:

The char­ac­ter­i­za­tion

“Hi! My name is River Swan Desmonda Sparkle-Eyes!”

Emma was, in my opin­ion, a Mary Sue – and that is a term I don’t use often. Basi­cally, I felt she was an author insert. Rare com­pelling eyes, one of a kind in her species, ultra spe­cial, father AND friend died to cre­ate sym­pa­thy. Even Gallen, when not with Emma, only thinks about Emma. He can sense her on land when that’s sup­posed to be impos­si­ble. It’s always the same with Mary Sues. Impos­si­bil­ity sur­rounds them and they’re just so fuck­ing SPESHAL while being the most bor­ing, repet­i­tive, inof­fen­sive turds around. The prob­lem with Mary Sues is that, if you’ve read one you’ve read them all and the only thing that separates them is the degree to exactly HOW speshul and ewnique they are. And the more Mary Suish they are, the more the other char­ac­ters spend every fuck­ing moment talk­ing and think­ing about Mary Sue – which as far as I could see, was exactly what hap­pened in this book. The only char­ac­ter flaw the author has given her is that she’s clumsy. Clumsy is not a char­ac­ter flaw. I’m sorry, but it’s not. It’s a lazy way of try­ing to make a young, beau­ti­ful female char­ac­ter imme­di­ately adorable and relat­able to an audi­ence and writ­ers do it all the time. Stop. Just stop it, okay?

Even if the story telling explains the clum­si­ness (she’s not meant to be on land – she’s meant to be in the water) it still makes for a weaker char­ac­ter. Because if you can’t bare to give your MC a more intense flaw than ‘clumsy’ then that becomes ALL you can say about her. “What’s Emma like?” “Oh, she’s just this really clumsy, inse­cure teenage girl.” Clumsy and inse­cure? No! Never. That only mar­gin­ally ties her to like 95% of the YA MC population!

Basi­cally, I can deal with bad writ­ing – to a degree. And bad char­ac­ter­i­za­tion – to a degree. And sex­ism – to a degree. But throw them all in with the death of a token char­ac­ter and smoosh it into a ter­ri­ble mess? Then I can’t deal. Then I throw my hands up in dis­gust, delete the book off my ereader and try to scrub my bloody brain free....more

I jumped at the thought of this ARC. A girl time trav­el­ing back to seduce Shake­speare? That’s awe­some! Shake­speare! *Swoon*

I had full on Joseph FI jumped at the thought of this ARC. A girl time trav­el­ing back to seduce Shake­speare? That’s awe­some! Shake­speare! *Swoon*

I had full on Joseph Fiennes from Shake­speare in Love flash­backs because, of course, I was 12 when the movie came out. Of course, as an adult I know a lot more about who Shake­speare seemed to be like from what doc­u­ments we have.

But still, I thought, how fas­ci­nat­ing? How is this going to go down? But this empha­sis on Stephen Lang­ford in the syn­op­sis? After all, the book is called Kiss­ing Shake­speare. So… she’ll just be kiss­ing Shake­speare, right?!

There will be peo­ple who will enjoy this book, undoubt­edly. But before you buy this book, allow me to give you this spoiler in case it’s impor­tant. Shake­speare is noth­ing more than a shadow of a char­ac­ter in this book.

Miranda, teenage actress from Mass­a­chu­setts, gets phys­i­cally abducted by Stephen and dragged back to Eliz­a­bethan Eng­land for the express pur­pose of hav­ing to seduce Shake­speare so that he doesn’t turn to the Priest­hood. So the romance, up until I read, seemed to be between Stephen and Miranda… the man who forcibly abducted a ter­ri­fied girl, took her to a place where she’d be friend­less and alone, and threat­ened her unless she seduces his friend.

Please allow me a moment to react.

No! NOOOOO! NOOOOOO! Why?! WHY!? Why does our male pro­tag­o­nist have to be some­one who abducted her and is lit­er­ally forc­ing her into a form of pros­ti­tu­tion because he thinks it doesn’t mat­ter since women in the future are all sluts any­way. WHY!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

If that were the only prob­lem with the novel, I MAY have been able to shud­der and at least fin­ished the novel. Maybe.

Unfor­tu­nately, his other rea­sons for abduct­ing this one par­tic­u­lar girl are that she is: a) an actress, b) very famil­iar with Shakespeare’s works and world and c) sup­posed to be able to pull this stu­pid, stu­pid, ridicu­lously dumb scheme off.

The first prob­lem is that if she is an actress then I am Imelda Mar­cos – and since I can’t seem to find my impres­sive col­lec­tion of designer shoes (I looked) then this first part is rub­bish. All three of these foun­da­tions have a basis in her sup­posed intel­lect which was unfor­tu­nately out for din­ner through­out any of the book I read. For some­one whose main asset was being steeped in Shake­spearean plays and cul­ture – she just plain SUCKED. She was mind­less. She couldn’t even CURTSY! I know she was sup­posed to be an audi­ence sur­ro­gate, but there’s a bal­ance that needs to be main­tained. That bal­ance repeat­edly had its feel­ings hurt and it even­tu­ally left to find some­one who would treat it properly.

Then we get to the writ­ing which was just juve­nile, which matched the plot and the char­ac­ters so at least I can’t say it was inconsistent.

One of the worst things about review­ing a book is to be care­ful not to mix up what you wanted and expected with the actual story. Some­times that’s just impos­si­ble to do. But I don’t think it’s unre­al­is­tic to expect a book titled Kiss­ing Shake­speare about a girl sup­posed to be seduc­ing Shake­speare would actu­ally… be about Shakespeare.

And I guess it’s not unfair to expect that one of the most bril­liant play­wrights of all time would be a lit­tle more com­plex and inter­est­ing. Look, I know he wrote to make money and he wrote pop­ulist mate­r­ial for the time but his beau­ti­ful, beau­ti­ful prose! His son­nets! It is tech­ni­cally pos­si­ble that he could have just been a dumb, shal­low use­less sev­en­teen year old. But c’mon!

It is also entirely pos­si­ble that he was a com­pli­cated, thought­ful and insight­ful human being.

And if we take a quick poll of peo­ple to ask about which Shake­speare they’d rather read about, I’m pretty sure I know which option would come out on top. I cer­tainly know which one I would have rather have read....more

I mean, if it were possible for a book to despise humanity and turn against people in genI thought it was illegal to fail this hard without a permit.

I mean, if it were possible for a book to despise humanity and turn against people in general, this would be its first step down the path to villainy.

This book is how they torture state secrets out of spies.

Reading this was like using a pineapple for a prostate exam.

In all honesty, it's not like there was a shortage of female protagonists who could charitably be described as useless, pathetic twats. I think Janie almost takes the cake as Queen of the Oxygen Thieves. I'd say she's more useless than someone who uses a Masterball on a Magikarp. She couldn't fight her way out of a paper bag if she had a map, GPS, and all her enemies were bunnies. Dead bunnies. If Kai wasn't there to wipe her ass for her, she stab herself with the toilet seat.

Her idea of a clever plan is to check both ways before getting stabbed with a knife.

I made it approximately halfway through the book in which she'd had about half a dozen fights with the supernatural. She didn't make it through a single one of them without Kai mysteriously showing up to rescue her. She's supposedly been trained since childhood for this position - presumably by the people who keep greenlighting Eddie Murphy movies, based entirely on the amount that Janie fails.

I guess what I was expecting was that someone who had spent years training as a feared warrior would be... competent? Able? Spend far less time on her ass watching other people do her job?

Kai was your requisite mysterious, dangerous, love interest. If you mistake him for a shadowy handpuppet reflection on your livingroom wall then you're not alone.

The writing is enough to make you weep with how disjointed, poorly structured and stagnant it is. The concept is convoluted and, frankly, laughably dumb. This is the cheesiest, silliest, worst homage to Buffy I've ever read. I had to check to see if it was trying to be ironic but, sadly, this was an honest attempt at story telling.

I probably shouldn't have read this. If you read the pre-read section at the bottom of the review, you'll see that I didn't even intend to order it. YI probably shouldn't have read this. If you read the pre-read section at the bottom of the review, you'll see that I didn't even intend to order it. Yet, since I had it, I thought I'd give it a go.

I lasted 24 pages because that's all my sanity could take.

Laurel is a magazine-beautiful, waif-like teenager who leaves homeschooling in grade 10 in order to begin her high school career.

The comment could fly past as poor characterization and sloppy writing if it didn't go hand in hand with Laurel's horrible relationship with food. In fact, a great deal of emphasis is placed on what she eats. Once again, not entirely a problem except attention is also placed on how she feels when she eats. Which is guilty and "like a battle has been lost" when she eats half a pear and half a cup of juice.

I know, Nickhun, I know.

The writing is just terrible and the characterization can't even be mentioned because I'm pretty sure Goodread's lax profanity rules would not cover what I would end up saying.

Mostly, it's all so very saccharine sweet and ickly chaste, yet oddly kinky and unbelievably tame. I feel like I'm describing Disneyland here, but if I do, that might make people think of fun. Notice I deliberately left fun off the list. But, luckily, there was comparable amounts of vomit.

Spoilers below, folks.

Apparently. APPARENTLY, Laurel is not actually a human, but a fairy. And the reason she is a vegan is because she is a plant. Like, as in, she is not a red blooded mammal but is an actual plant...

I'm sorry, I'm going to need a judge's ruling on that.

Thank you. Steve Carell. I think you've said it all.

Look, you just. You don't do that. You just...don't. I mean, what school of biology did you go to? The Stephanie Meyer School of Biology, that's what!

I mean, and correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't 8th grade biology talk a lot about how plants photosynthesize to make energy and how they do respire but at night when there's no light and about how they don't have things like digestive systems and they don't have blood but, hey they do have Chloroplasts and Chlorophylls. And how they don't digest nutrients by eating them but by absorbing them through their roots. There just doesn't seem to be a lot of thought put into this.

I mean, look at organs like the brain. How does her brain work? They need A LOT Of protein. A huge amount actually. Which you can get by eating a healthy vegan diet, but she's not even doing that.

Scientists don't look at an ape-like creature and have this conversation:

"So, Doctor Rosenbaum, what do you think it is? Mammal? Reptile? Plant? Rock?""I don't know. I just don't know. If only there was some way of determining these things! Look, just to be safe, put it down as a bird. Just because it doesn't fly - doesn't mean it can't!"

I used to think that the old troll argument of, "You're overthinking it! Stop thinking so much and you'll enjoy it!" was full of shit. But, in this case, they're right. My highly developed mammalian brain just can not handle this level of stupidity. But even if I could somehow switch it off. Well, there enough other bad stuff in here that would spoil it anyway.

I'm not entirely sure why I'm reading this. For some reason I thought there was some controversy over this author and that I'd barred it, but it's not on my Do Not Read shelf so I must have been mistaken.

I went to pick up books from the library this afternoon and it was among them. I don't clearly remember ordering it so I asked for the order date and went home to Mr. Kennedy. The conversation went something like this:

Me: "Hey honey, was I drinking heavily on the 15th of December?"Mr Kennedy: "Hmmm...the 15th was a Thursday. That's Corona day."Me: "Ugh. Okay, definitely drunk. That explains it."Mr Kennedy: "Let me guess, you found traffic cones and police hats again?"Me: *Thinks for a second* "That probably would have been the preferable outcome."

Did you hear that sound? That sound, right there? Okay, well, it's either the sound of my heart forsaking Mead for all eternity, or there's a murdererDid you hear that sound? That sound, right there? Okay, well, it's either the sound of my heart forsaking Mead for all eternity, or there's a murderer whose broken into your house and is SNEAKING UP BEHIND YOU!!!!!

Look over your shoulder just to check that I'm wrong. You know you want to do it!

Storm Born, the tragic tale of a woman forced by cruel fate to be hit on by ALL the men. Yes. That's what this story is about. Okay, there are fairies and she has to recover some damsel in distress but basically the novel is about Eugenie's love life.

I suppose my problem with Dark Born is that all of Mead's washed up, tried and not-so-true tropes are here. Again. Strong heroine (who will undoubtedly end the series as a complete moron), sexy hero who heroine loves, though nobody really knows why. Secondary sexy love interest who is way more awesome than sexy hero and who Mead spends far more time fleshing out a real relationship with the heroine, but who is apparently not the heroine's twue loff. For reasons completely unknown. I will inevitably like this love interest far more than the banal and boring love interest Mead champions.

The one thing I'll say about this novel is that Mead writes good sex. That's her one redeeming virtue. She writes gripping, interesting characters, a rich world and stories that hint at great possibilities, but Mead absolutely sucks at the follow through.

The difference with this novel is that I'm not interested in following through to watch her crash and burn yet another series. This novel reminded me of a quote by Dan Hemmens from Ferretbrain.

"Rape is not the occupational hazard of having a vagina."

Thank you.

Now I'll address the fictional critics in my head by saying that yes, Mead gave all these douches a reason to rape the protagonist that wasn't just about sex. But... well, it just doesn't count and I'll explain why.

I don't know about you, but *I* am personally sick of stories that tell me that because I have a vagina, I am a walking talking victim waiting to happen. Because novel after novel tells the same story. No matter how strong, powerful or kickarse you are as a heroine, you are still a victim and will need to be rescued by a man. Possibly several times.

I'm sick to death of it. Barely a page goes by in this book where rape isn't mentioned. Even if it's just to say, 'Eugenie, you're so beautiful I'd rape you and LIKE it!"

This book almost treats rape like a fucking compliment. "I've had five rape attempts today, what about you?" "Oh, I've had three." "Oh, I'm so sorry to hear that. Don't worry, maybe tomorrow will pick up!"

I have a problem with drilling into people's heads that women are victims. Always. Vulnerable, precious little petals. Don't let them out of the house or they'll trip over their puritanical vaginas and get raped. Or what about a message just as bad? Almost all men will rape if given the chance. It's the rare few who won't take the opportunity for a good ol' free for all on an unwilling woman.

Now hold on for an even bigger criticism. Of all the worst things, this was the WORST. POSSIBLE. THING!

Author blurb for Jill Myles from the author profile for Jessica Clare:After devouring hundreds of paperback romances, mythology books, and archaeologiAuthor blurb for Jill Myles from the author profile for Jessica Clare:After devouring hundreds of paperback romances, mythology books, and archaeological tomes, she decided to write a few books of her own - stories with a wild adventure, sharp banter, and lots of super-sexy situations. She prefers her heroes alpha and half-dressed, her heroines witty, and she loves nothing more than watching them overcome adversity to fall into bed together.

If you are wondering why I'm quoting Myles' author blurb and why it exists on Jessica Clare's author profile and why it's applicable to a Jessica Sims' book then congratulations - it worked. It worked because for some reason I purchased this book and you might have too. I read the author bio for Jessica Sims which says some shit about owning cats and playing games. What it doesn't say is that Jessica Sims in a nom de plume for Jill Myles and so is Jessica Clare.

I feel absolutely cheated. I'd already read Gentlemen Prefer Succubi, and disliked this author's writing intensely. I never would have bought this book if I'd known that she wrote it. I don't know why three pen names are necessary in the same genre and why two of those pen names are even in the same subgenre!

It's enough to say that nothing about the writing has improved. At all. If anything, the characterization has degraded. The blurb might lead you to believe that the writing is full of intelligence and research. It might make you think that the dialogue is smart, witty and sharp. You might think that the romance heroes are sexy and the heroines are strong but funny. It's all a lie. One big fucking lie.

Once again the plot was pathetically simple and juvenile. I honestly feel that the writing is cheap and sloppy as hell.

And the characters.

Fuck my life.

There is nothing witty about them. Nothing. Bathsheba is a capitulating moron who has no sense - common or otherwise. Beau is an obsessive, controlling psychopath. From the moment he meets her he controls everything about her. Their first date is nothing but creepy, gross sexual innuendo. Just a few hours after meeting her he has drugged her and kidnapped her to his hotel (for her own safety, of course). Within days he's kidnapped her again and dragged her to a remote location where he puts her completely within his control. This doesn't stop. The entire book continues like this.

I'm sure some will dismiss this as a caring man, concerned about his woman and taking care of her. My response would be to tell them to go volunteer at a woman's shelter at some point because that's exactly where Bathsheba would wind up one day.

When is the picture of what's sexy and appropriate going to change? This is not sexy. Abusive isn't sexy and Beau shows ALL the signs of an abuser. Spend three months helping a woman escape her abusive, controlling husband and come back and tell me this shit is still okay. Hear her cry on the phone night after night while he's in the shower because she's terrified for her life but physically can't leave. She can't leave because he controls her money, so she has to secretly work over time and squirrel the money away. She can't just take her passport and banking stuff. No. She has to pretend to be clearing out the study and she has to secret her documents away. Spend THREE MONTHS storing things for a terrified woman who is agonizingly working, inch by inch for moving day. I can not express the amount of thought and planning that goes into those moving days. Some of them will haunt me forever.

When we all have to show up but can't park in front of the house in case he drives by so we end up carrying boxes two blocks away to where our cars are. Where we have to board her cat and secretly arrange a garage for her car to stay in and keep plane tickets hidden in her name. Live those three months with the knowledge that ONE WRONG SLIP and he'll track her down and beat the shit out of her, kill her or worse - force her back to him. Something forgotten at home meaning an early return, a call to work where a careless coworker reveals she didn't come in, him accidentally stumbling on a clue to her plans beforehand.

Do all this and then come back to me and tell me it's alright to write this kind of relationship. I don't think there's anything that's going to convince me that Beau's characterization was harmless and just a sexy break from reality. It's a fucking tragic reality for far too many women. And it isn't romantic.

When I went to read this book, I first checked out the reviews to see what I was in for. I was led to believe that this book was going to be bad by thWhen I went to read this book, I first checked out the reviews to see what I was in for. I was led to believe that this book was going to be bad by the sheer number of people who came to commiserate with me. Few books have ever drawn such a crowd of victims to console one another. And can anyone wonder why when this book reads like a thirteen year old's badly executed wetdream?

I have a theory though. Bear with me. I think we've all been reading this book wrongly am I'm willing to prove it.

It seems, on the outside, that this would be the story of an insipid, selfish little bitch who is becoming a vampyre and has to go to a new school.

I would never have stumbled upon the truth if it hadn't been for Edwina Wren, the narrator. Listening to her bumble through this mess (her attempt to impersonate a cat was particularly inspiring) put me in the mindframe of a psychopath - and that's when it hit me - that was exactly what I was listening to! The world according to a teenage vampyre with Borderline Personality Disorder.

Allow me to extrapolate:

When we meet her, she immediately introduces us to her bestfriend and ex-boyfriend. Her friend is characterised as shallow and stupid. Her ex-boyfriend is a brainless drunk. Of course, Zoe is nothing like her friends. She is special and she expects us to think better of her for putting up with these lesser mortals.

Zoe is marked as a vampyre and when she returns home, we meet her mother. Naturally, Zoe is innocent, reasonable and rational in all of her dealings. Any anger or temper she displays is completely understandable. It is her mother who is stupid, weak and foolish for marrying again and Zoe has NO CHOICE but to run away or her religious step-father will likely cause her death out of his own ignorance and stupidity.

Yes, we see a definite pattern here. Zoe is always good. People she doesn't like are always demonized to the extreme - which is a hallmark of Borderline Personality Disorder. The only person Zoe likes is her Cherokee Grandmother - possibly because this makes Zoe appear exotic and mystical. This version of Zoe's grandmother likes Zoe better than her own daughter and constantly tells Zoe how special she is - feeding her delusions of grandeur. Zoe's delusions and need for approval quickly spiral out of control from this point on. The stress of becoming a vampyre clearly taxes her already overwraught mental faculties.

Zoe's mark is apparently different, making her much more special than the other Vampyres and Zoe believes she's had a spiritual encounter with the goddess Nyx - who places her unique mark upon Zoe because she has singled her out as her own. "You are wise beyond your years, Zoe Redbird," the goddess explains.

Now we definitely know we're dealing with Zoe's psychosis! There’s no way this is Kansas anymore!

When Zoe arrives at school, we see a pattern. Those that Zoe likes are those that immediately single her out as special. These people are all wonderful, kind, faultless friends who exist only to bolster Zoe's already inflated self-esteem and need for attention. Her friends all strictly conform to Zoe's idea of who they should be - never deviating from the carefully laid out script or showing signs of more complicated personalities. Her bumpkin friend is always a bumpkin. Not a single interaction with her gay friend occurs in which we are not reminded of his gayness - as if that is his most identifiable and important personality trait.

Those who don't immediately identify with Zoe and feed her ego are, like her family and old friends, demonized. This falls to the lot of Aphrodite and it is in this character that we see Zoe's strongest BPD symptoms. Consider her every interaction with Aphrodite.

-When we meet Aphrodite, through Zoe, she is forcing a blow job on the future object of Zoe's desire. I can't find a statistical formula for how many boys have refused blowjobs from their girlfriends, because one doesn't exist yet, but this was when I first solidly began to believe my assertion about her BPD was truly correct.-Everything Aphrodite has eventually becomes Zoe's. Her position as leader of the cult, her boyfriend, her popularity – even her dress. This all happens within a few days.-Zoe, single-handedly ruining this girl's life, is portrayed as being Zoe's Holy mission from the goddess. Of course! It's not that Zoe, out of jealousy, set about to become Aphrodite! It's that she HAD to because she's so SPECIAL and set-apart by Nyx! She's performing justice, not a hostile take-over!-Everything, even the most innocuous things done by Aphrodite are seen as slutty by Zoe who fixates on Aphrodite's sexuality as only someone deeply jealous and bitter truly can. From Aphrodite's dancing, clothes, smile - even her gestures are slutty!-Zoe comes to believe, through gossip and the most faulty logic ever used, that Aphrodite is abusing her gift of foresight and not revealing all of her visions. She has no proof of this. One could argue that someone who sees the future and keeps some of those visions to herself might have a very good reason to do this! She sees the fucking future! Maybe she’s seen that there’s some danger in revealing all she knows to the aloof and mysterious vampyres? Just a thought…-Everything associated with Aphrodite is bad. Her friends are bad, the cult under her leadership is bad, her clothes even LOOK better on Zoe - such is Zoe's desire to be an improved version of Aphrodite.

We see this most strongly in Zoe's justification of what she would do differently when she becomes the leader of the Dark Daughters. That’s right. Zoe even fantasies about taking Aphrodite’s place in the world instead of carving out her own.

Aphrodite is talking about a boy, Eliot, who has just died. She calls him weak and prays that none of the Dark Daughters would be weak like that. Zoe twists this to believe that Aphrodite hates humans and is genocidal. Of course.

In Zoe's own musings, she discusses how she feels nothing for Eliot's death because he was ugly and annoying. A normal person might reflect on the briefness of life, feel sad that the dead person is gone, that they didn't know him better, that there will be people who liked him who are sad, that it wasn't fair, that his death was senseless and tragic, that it was cruel etc.

What does Zoe think? That she won't be mean about dead people...no matter how insignificant or ugly they are.

Because this boy was a stranger to Zoe, his entire existence is classified as insignificant. Nobody will mourn him and his death meant nothing except to cause Zoe to reflect on her own mortality.

Yes. We can definitely confirm that Zoe's mind is an alternate reality machine. Due to mental health reasons, she can't comprehend her surroundings and other people like a sane person would. This crippling disorder tricks her mind and perceptions into altering her consciousness and reception of the world.

Instead, the world exists to either love her, or abuse her. People are no more complicated than either being very good, or very bad. Those who have what she wants are merely bugs to be squashed on her way to power. Friends are nothing but mindless parrots - existing in a positive state, as long as they please her. She can lie to them, yell at them, manipulate them but that doesn't matter. They only exist to be her friends.

No. Despite what Cast wants you to think, this isn't the story of Zoe Redbird, unique new girl at the Vampyre finishing school.

This is the tale of Aphrodite, whose world is cruelly crushed by a monster set to destroy her and steal everything she has. Everything is snatched from her. Vilified and crucified for being in Zoe Redbird's way.

The parallels are astounding!

This is Zoe Redbird's Apologia. Her manifesto of evil. This is the world according to Zoe – translated so that a sane person can see through her eyes as if there were wearing Zoe Glasses and it's a really, really scary place!

The year was 2008. It was a fair year. The Olympics were held in Beijing and Michael Phelps became an international celebrity. The Indian Space ResearThe year was 2008. It was a fair year. The Olympics were held in Beijing and Michael Phelps became an international celebrity. The Indian Space Research Station has a win with Chandrayaan-1 whilst elephants and terrorists rampage across the country killing many hundreds of people. President Obama is elected into office. Fidel Castro resigns. Theoneste Bagosore is convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment in Rowanda for genocide. Israel and Hamas fight...again...

And a young, naive woman is pregnant with her first child.

She is unsure, lacks confidence and wants to be certain she does the best job for her unborn child. Yet there are a great deal of books, resources and information - which ones to start with? Which ones to trust?

So she turns to older, more experienced mothers who all but thrust this book into her hands and begin making the promises.

Your child will sleep through the night at eight weeks if you follow this book.

You won't have breastfeeding issues.

Your child will be settled and happy.

You will be a good mother.

The book is full of advice. Not just advice, but research! Science! It must be right!

It all makes sense now. Parenting will be a breeze. The book has told her everything she needs to know.

Don't trust your instincts, it said. That way leads to folly, trust us instead!

Your baby will cry, but mostly this will be to manipulate you. You must be firm, even if you want to give it a cuddle, this will only let the baby win. Don't give up and comfort it, stay strong and it will learn to self settle! Routine, routine, routine, that is the only way to go! Feed every four hours - hold out until then so that they're REALLY hungry and have a full feed.

It makes statements like:

There's no evidence to suggest that crying is bad for babies.It's actually good for babies to cry for a period of time every day - it's natural.Don't cosleep. Mother's don't get enough rest with cosleeping.Children must sleep in their own rooms.Attachment Parenting is misguided and results in exhausted/poor mothering.

November arrives and her child is born.

She tries. Lord knows, she tries. But he won't stop crying, screaming, with a red face and tiny little hands bawled into tiny little fists. People tell her he is hungry and should be fed. She can't see it. They must be wrong. Babywise had told her that he needed to feed every four hours. Demand feeding would destroy breastfeeding, spoil him and have him feeding from her constantly until he controlled her completely.

Despite having a natural, drug-free, complication-free birth, they keep her in hospital for five days, refusing to let her go home because she is clearly depressed, not coping and struggling to care for her newborn who begins losing weight, cries inconsolably and struggles to settle. Her breastmilk doesn't come in for five days.

Eventually she signs herself out of the hospital. It must be the hospital's fault. That's why the book's advice wasn't working. That's why he wants to be picked up all the time, won't sleep and won't feed properly. She'll be fine as long as she just goes home.

But things don't improve. Her breastmilk supply is limited, the baby restless. She and her husband spend countless nights pacing the halls trying to settle their little boy. They hold firm and don't bring him to bed with them despite their exhaustion, try not to spoil him, pick him up too much and give into his obviously stubborn, temperamental nature.

The mother slips further into depression, rarely looking into her son's face. Soon he stops looking into hers. When he's not crying, he sits cheerlessly and robotically on her lap while she ignores him.

"Spare the rod, spoil the child," she keeps reminding herself.

Eight weeks come and go. The baby cries all night still. The mother has failed. She is a wretched creature. A terrible mother. It was all a horrible mistake.

Maybe the book is wrong? Maybe she should feed whenever he cries? Maybe he could come into her bed occasionally?

Sometimes he pushes away from her, keeps his eyes averted, scrunches up his little face in anger, then he flips and clings to her, feeds constantly, wants to sleep only in her arms. The baby is so unsure in his attachment to his mother. He is a baby in distress.

"Oh no! The book was right all along! Attachment parenting isn't the answer!" she thinks. As a mother, she's failed again. She's failed her son again. Now thoroughly despairing, depressed, unconnected, she begins needing just one beer to make it through lunch time. Then she needs a beer to make it through to bedtime as well.

Eventually, help is sought. "Consistency," the midwife says after listening to the mother's distraught story. "You need rest. You need to refresh. He needs consistent, affectionate nurturing." The mother nods. The advice sounds good. "Stop looking to the clock to feed your baby. The clock doesn't need feeding."

A loose routine is hatched out, but the baby is to be fed when hungry. The baby is to be given rest, love and attention.

Slowly the months slip away. The baby learns to cuddle. The baby learns to laugh and giggle. The baby learns kisses and snuggles. The mother eventually gets better, begins enjoying parenthood. She learns to play with her child, interact with her child, enjoy her child.

She can see now what this book lacks. She sees that it is so concerned about structure and discipline and not love - the greatest Christian principle of them all. It pits mother and baby against each other in a nonexistent battle for control. Between the parent's needs and the child's needs. It is parent-focused with unbalanced, incomplete data and research. It provides no unbiased advice, advocates no nurturing, divorces mother and instinct.

The mother wants those first four months with her son back. She desperately wishes she could have them returned, change them, be the mother HE needed instead of the mother she was "educated" to be. She knows the Ezzos aren't entirely to blame. She's the one who chose to take their advice, to apply it, to lose faith in herself. But they are not innocent either.

They have published this book. The information is careless and their opinion is raised to that of gospel. Biblical references are twisted and garbled in order to fit the Ezzo's approach. Scientific research is cherry picked, or in some cases outright misleading.

At the end of the day, though, the mother has won. She gave birth to a second son. When he cries, he is comforted. When he is hungry, he is fed. He sleeps when he wants to and at night he cuddles up in his mother or father's arms, safe and sound. He looks into his mother's eyes and already tries to smile. He snuggles his head into her neck and gurgles when she presses kisses into his. She is happy. She is in love with her two boys. She is the mother she wants to be. It is nothing like what the Ezzo's wanted.

There was a lot about this book that I didn't like, but only some of it can be legitimately complained about.

I can't really complain about the amountThere was a lot about this book that I didn't like, but only some of it can be legitimately complained about.

I can't really complain about the amount and type of sex in this book like I could for Anita Blake because, unlike Anita Blake, this book is meant to have sex in it! It is Erotica.

Sure, the silent, gaping, hole where my soul is shrieking over the tentacle sex would be fun to discuss, but I really can't. I highly doubt many people would pick this book up without knowing that it's freaky beyond all reason and probably violates the Geneva Convention at least a couple of times. Plus, I'm pretty sure 35% of it is illegal in a minimum of three American states.

But luckily, LKH gives me plenty else to complain about and it just happens to be pretty much everything wrong with the later Anita Blake books too!

The writing in this novel was horrible but it was actually the story telling and characterization that made it particularly difficult to wade through.

The issue LKH has with taking 200 pages for all of the characters in Anita Blake to argue, discuss and consider her tampon brand is right here for easy access in MG.

Aside from a short opening scene, the majority of this 400 page novel occurs within 48 hour span. Of those 48 hours, Merry is unconscious for a good 24(ish, I suppose, it's easy to lose track of time during the waffling!)of those.

So basically the story revolves around Merry going back to Fairy, attending a party and heading home. Along the way she gives a sideways glance at a mystery that solves itself, has a lot of sex and relies on unpredictable, unexplainable sex/blood powers to fix all her problems and save the day.

I was hoping that this book, unlike Anita Blake, would actually show Merry CHOOSING to have sex with a bunch of men, but not really. Once again circumstances and people more powerful than herself force her to do it. Really. She's just a victim here, guys.

It's also a disturbing trend that LKH's female characters use their bodies/sex to heal emotional hurts in others because, despite everything healthy and normal, apparently you can do that.

If you want to get laid then just give Merry/Anita a sob story about how you're so broken up inside/can't get laid/have some kind of repressed issues etc and she'll most likely sleep with you then. Because that's all you need. Her magic cooter will heal all your ills. I wonder about the message it sends when Merry/Anita has so little self esteem and values her body so little. In fact, I worry about the disconnected way that Merry/Anita use their bodies - almost as if it was just a tool to share around for the greater good.

It almost makes me feel weird for only having sex with people because I WANT to have sex with them. The part where she only considers turning down a man with tentacles spewing out of his abdomen, because she won't be able to properly fake her orgasms was a little disconcerting!

Despite the fact that Raising Boys is vague on details, out of date and amateurish in the more intimate areas of brain functioning and child development, it is still far more helpful, informative and useful than this book will ever be.

You can be forgiven for assuming, as I did, that Bringing Up Boys is a book concerned with providing information for parents in understanding their boys, a variety of tips and advice on their problem behaviors and an overall plan on how to smooth the journey.

Unfortunately, Dobson's only answer to all of the above is the same to any question asked in Sunday School (and here's a tip, it's ALWAYS a variation of the following three): Jesus, prayer, the Bible.

Okay, you expect a book by an evangelist to run in such a theme. However, I also expected a book by a person with a doctorate is psychiatry to provide informed, balanced, professional advice based on research, statistics, studies and personal experience.

No. Dobson unapologetically hates feminists, liberals and homosexuals and he makes absolutely no attempt at providing balanced information. This book is nothing more than fear-mongering propaganda. Though he uses many studies to try and validate his opinion, he out-right omits balanced data or studies that don't confirm his opinion. Some of the studies he uses are out-dated or invalidated by other studies. His statistics are used to validate his opinions in one area, then disregarded in another.

For example, at one point he claims that there's no evidence for a genetic inheritance of homosexuality because twin studies show that if one twin is homosexual, then the other is statistically "only" %50 likely to be homosexual as well. Yet, later in the book he claims that our genetics are a major influence on our life and uses another twin study to validate this by stating that if one twin gets divorced then then identical twin has a %45 chance of divorcing as well!

Now I'm not arguing about the nature vs nurture because the bulk of recent scientific studies show that we are largely products of our genetics - in that part, he's right but there's little else in this book that I can say that for.

Mostly, because this book's advice for raising boys can be summed up as:

This book was offensive to logic, reason and most of all, humanity. Dobson hates:

1. Homosexuals2. Women's liberation3. Liberals4. Namby-pamby people who let their children play with gender-neutral toys and don't provide young boys with toy guns, don't smack and practice that hippy, attachment parenting philosophy.5. The media

He is terrified of them all and this book, rather than being about Bringing Up Boys as the title suggests, is really about vilifying all of the above and scare-mongering his readers into hating and fearing them as much as he does.

Every chapter went something like this:

You need to spend time with your kids. I really FEEL for single mothers/homosexuals/poor people/women who don't fit my small and pathetic definition of what I think a woman should be. Unlike me, who is a disgustingly rich, upper middle class, white man, I understand that you don't have the benefits of choices about spending time with your children. Some of you have to work in order to survive. Gee, must be tough.

But it's still important so if you can't spend more time with them... eh, I really feel for you. Please enjoy my heart-touching tale of how I once met a single mother/homosexual/poor person/woman that didn't fit my small and pathetic definition of what I think a woman should be and changed their life in a positive way. I'm so awesome.

As a woman and a feminist, I want to be mostly offended at his narrow and pathetic views on what and who I should be. However, I'm far more offended on behalf of the homosexual community who he ALMOST outright incriminates of conspiring to rape your boys. Didn't you know? All homosexual men want is to have buttsecks with little boys. All lesbians want is to groom little girls into future lesbians and - perhaps worse, feminists. I especially love how he uses the example of the LBGT community in the UK pushing for the age of consent for homosexual boys to be lowered to 16 in order to try and prove his allegations about homosexuals. Yet he conveniently neglects to mention that this was in order to equalize the age of consent because the AOC for heterosexuals was already 16! At one point he even claims that the breakdown of marriage in the US is due to the rising acceptance of same-sex relationships.

Riiiiiiiiiigggghhht!

Like I said, logic isn't his strong point!

Similarly, women's liberation is also at fault for all the ills of society and most of all, for troubled young lads. It's too exhausting to address his many inaccuracies and prejudices toward women and since this review is long enough already, I'll just leave you to assume the worst - you'll most likely be right. I wish, instead, that he'd look at his own research. He claims again and again that fathers are essential to the raising of strong, good young men. I absolutely agree. So maybe men are to blame for the current male crisis?

According to Cole, the answer to this is that she's just too damn empowered and has tooDo you know a woman who's bitchy, non-compliant and difficult?

According to Cole, the answer to this is that she's just too damn empowered and has too many rights!

Surely relinquishing her unappreciated freedoms and rights will make her abundantly happy... and compliant... and slutty...

I hear an objection from the Kresley Cole fans and in the interest of fair media representation, I'll relay it to the rest of you. "But Kat, the novels ends with Wroth and Myst in an equal relationship where Myst has her freedom and Wroth is remorseful for his treatment of Myst."

That's very true.

But this happens AFTER Myst has been "tamed" and brought to heal like a bitch in heat. It also happens after Myst, who is a two-thousand year-old woman of immense power and knowledge, contemplates how happy she is now that she's no longer in charge of her own life.

I am not exaggerating, either. She reminisces on how, unknowingly, she's been waiting for a man stronger than her to come along, overpower her and take away those burdensome choices.

Stop lying! You're just angry because you don't have a kitchen to go home to!

Note to men: Despite how insanely beautiful and attractive I am, I can assure you that any attempt to kidnap or control me will not end pleasantly on your behalf. Despite my Super Slut Powers, I'm less than likely to fall to pieces at the sight of your sizable "manroot" and decide to exchange regular access to it for my freedom.

I really actually enjoyed how this novel started because Myst was just so badass. She reminded me of Holo out of Spice and Wolf, which is a great anime if you're new to the genre and are looking for something to convince you that the Japanese aren't all weird and creepy perverts.

My issue with Cole is that she interprets female strength, in this novel, as using your sexuality as a weapon and deceiving men with the illusion of sex. I don't think sexuality mingled with deception is women's greatest weapon or strength any more than I think a man's greatest weapon is his physical strength. In fact, Myst never even really tries to outsmart Wroth, as if it's a useless attempt. Dude, you have like 1300 years on the guy! You don't have one trick up your sleeve that doesn't involve handjobs?

I can think of ten better ways to get a ride out of a guy and I'm only 24, Myst. It's like you're not even trying...

On the other hand, there IS something endearing about this novel.

I just can't quite put my finger on it though...

Okay, this novel really, truly is very sexy. It is it's one redeeming feature other than the ending where I'm convinced that at least this couple has a chance of surviving a relationship together, which I can't say for most romance novels, so that's a positive.

And just in case you didn't get the memo, this book is very, very sexy.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to read every single thing that Kresley Cole has ever written.

**spoiler alert** A lot of Goodreads friends that I have, people I deeply respect and whose opinions I actually hold in great value gave this book lot**spoiler alert** A lot of Goodreads friends that I have, people I deeply respect and whose opinions I actually hold in great value gave this book lots of stars and glowing reviews. Friends of mine, you know I adore you, so please don't take offense at this review. If you enjoyed this book then I’m really glad you did. It makes me happy when people enjoy literature. So you probably shouldn't read this review if you love this book. And you especially shouldn’t read the following statement and my extremely volatile expression of it:

Without any doubt, in my not-so-professional opinion, this book is a little, flaccid dick waving free in the breeze of literature trying its very bestest to hardened up and bugger us all in the ass

My advice: don't let it.

It's nice to know that even though Cassandra Clare's Draco Trilogy ended years ago, I can pick up ANY SINGLE ONE of her books that she has published and see not only Draco’s character, but all my old friends from the Harry Potter Fanon Universe with different names and physical descriptions but otherwise pretty much intact. Because seven really long books just wasn’t enough for them apparently.

It's nice to know that the snappy little one-liners and cheap hijinks are being recycled because they worked so well the first AND second time she used them.

I don't think I've made it any great secret that I despise the writings of Cassandra Clare - so let me get the, few, good points out of the way so I can go back to imagining a world where authors like this are forcibly chained to their desks and made to read their own stories over and over again until they’re sorry.

-She stopped using so many damn similes. I no longer feel like gouging out my own eyes every single time she tries to describe something.

-There is no creepy incest in this book so my husband was spared walking in on me trying to choke the life out of a paperback novel.

And… that about it. I mean, let’s face it, if the only good things I can say about this book are that she’s made slight improvements so that I no longer feel the urge to commit seppuku by diving head first into a meat grinder, then it’s not high praise.

So what was wrong with this novel? Well, other than the fact that the characters were almost CARBON COPIES of ones that I’d read in City of Bones, Draco Dormiens, Draco Sinister and Draco Veritas, there was just so much to hate. The character building that they actually DO have only exists because she did the work years ago (on top of another author's pre-existing characters) – otherwise they’d be little more animated than the clockwork automatons that appear in this story.

Don’t get me started on how she wiki’d “Victorian Society”, copy and pasted the information into word and then randomly injected it into the story via the characters parroting the cans and can’ts of the time period. Not even going there. It’ll take too long to complain about that.

How about her inability to write a storyline that is in anyway surprising? Reading one of her novels is like watching a dumbed down version of Scooby Doo. I actually liked Scooby Doo (before Scrappy-Doo came along. Whoever made that character needed to be shot, hung, kheelhauled and quartered – the whole works) but you know how they’d go somewhere and they’d be like, “Hey guys, I think something’s going to happen! Hey, look gang, a perfectly inconspicuous diving mask… I WONDER IF THIS COULD BE A CLUE *WINK**WINK**NUDGE**NUDGE* FOR ALL THE FIVE YEAR OLD KIDS PLAYING AT HOME!”

In Clockwork Angel, Clare practically flags you down, makes you come look VERY hard at her clue that is painted bright, bright red and poorly hidden behind her back while she insists that it’s not actually there and giggles every time she tries to make you not look at her ENORMOUS FLIPPIN' CLUE. She insists on this behaviour until finally you pat her on the head, tell her that she ALMOST managed to colour inside all the lines.

The whole concept of this book wasn’t original! It was her looking at the Internet culture going, “Huh… so people are really getting into steampunk, eh? Hmmmm… how can I cash in on this with as little effort on my behalf as possible?”

She is recycling characters that she built on from the Harry Potter universe years ago. She's recycling storylines, conversations, personalities, plot-points, ideas and concepts from all around her and she recycles her own stuff (what little there is of it) just as frequently.

When she was accused of plagiarism for lifting entire paragraphs of text from other authors without referencing it, she made a comment that it didn't really matter because - hey, isn't fanfiction just pastiche anyway?

Well, fine. It was just fanfiction, who really cares? But I'd think after all these years she would have moved on past her pastiche style of writing to something that she could actually claim as her own.

But you know what? She can't. It seems she's entirely incapable of it. She is doing the literary equivalent of attempting to f@^# us all up the ass, without lube, and I for one don’t intend to sit around and take it. I feel no guilt in saying that she doesn’t deserve to be published or to be earning the money that she is. I will proudly complain about her books until she actually starts to care about the fudge that she’s packing.

How To Write Popular YA Supernatural Literature AND Defile Your Spirit!

Based on the popular YA novel, Evermore, and aided by countless more like it, IHow To Write Popular YA Supernatural Literature AND Defile Your Spirit!

Based on the popular YA novel, Evermore, and aided by countless more like it, I have compiled an easy to read and follow list of rules for writing a popular series and being able to sell out your soul at the same time. Does that sound too convenient? Well, it's unbelievably easy to do if you follow my quick and easy program!

1. Create an 'Outcast' Heroine.

It's important that your primarily female teenage audience can relate to your main character. So whilst you can't have your main character associate herself with being cool, it still has to be obvious to your audience that she totally is. Now, Meyer's approach of the goose-turned Swan-but was really still a goose, Bella, associated herself as 'different' and a 'loner' only to arrive at her new school and be immediately popular and accepted by almost everyone. Noel's method is different yet in a similar spirit. Her protagonist, Ever, was incredibly popular at her old school and has decided to be an outcast because she feels that she can't be accepted due to her psychic gift. She also has the ability to perceive someone's personality through the colours that define them. So instead of aligning herself with the shallow, mean and popular crowd, she aligns herself with the shallow and mean loners.

It’s very important for your protagonists to be 'different' because today's youth despise the sheep mentality and so they all strive to be unique. Since they're all different in almost the exact same way, it is relatively easy to emulate this, with as little effort put into characterization as possible, in your female protagonist.

As long as she shows no regard for her clothing, appearance or any kind of interest in giving a shit about anyone but herself she will easily pass with young audiences. It will be her ewniqueness that eventually draws the Perfect Hero to her as opposed to any of the usual elements such as: looks, hygiene, personality or determinable interest in the world outside their own arse.

Please also remember that she probably should be a reader, preferably of Wuthering Heights or Romeo and Juliet and that she should consider everyone around her to have inferior intelligence despite the fact that her reading repertoire extends to only a couple of books.

A noticeably absent family is necessary and a completely dead family makes for a better story because then she actually has a perceived reason to be a moody, antisocial, self-absorbed little bitch. Do this even though, in all likelihood, she would be all of the above with a perfectly normal family.

2. Create a perfect hero.

It is VERY important that your hero be perfect in almost every regard. Unlike the female protagonist who can disregard her appearance, he must not only be more attractive than a GQ model without any of the effort put into his appearance, but he must also be thoughtful, intelligent and mysterious.

In no way is he to reflect almost every teenage boy to have ever existed and he must have no desire to find a partner for himself who is in anyway comparable in looks, kindness, intelligence or perfection.

If he is a vampire or some such immortal then he must be ridiculously wealthy. If he is a werewolf then he is allowed to be poor but must make up for it with incredible bedroom skills.

He needn’t have a personality that extends beyond mysterious, sexy and in love with the female protagonist. Naturally, in this respect, Meyers, Mead, Marr and Stiefvater are something like overachievers - but if Noel, Saintcrow, Clare, Kate and Fitzpatrick are any indication, then we need know little more about the hero other than the fact that he’s gorgeous, has a secret and is in love. History, friends, likes, dislikes, family, passions, interests, hobbies and personality flaws are all negligible information that is taking up precious space in your novel. Especially when you could be injecting more drooling from the female protagonist in place of any kind of characterization for your hero.

Your book will sell better if the hero stalks, follows, obsesses over and actively pursues the heroine beyond any realm of believability. You could triple your audience just by having him watch her sleep.

3. Create useless friends.

It’s important to reiterate to the young adult generation that nobody other than the hero is important. Since domestic abuse begins with one partner manoeuvring the other to have limited contact with anyone else, we must strive to normalize this in literature. Thus the female protagonist shouldn’t have anyone close enough to her that she can’t break contact or eventually forget about them. It’s very important that her full focus, socialization and all of her needs are eventually devoted or met by the male protagonist.

To aid this, her friends must be selfish, vain, crazy, slutty, uncaring or in other ways undeserving of the heroine’s attentions and affections. It’s very important that she never call them on their poor, damaging and graceless friendship but must lovingly worry about them for the minimal amount of time acceptable to the reader before once again completely focusing on the mysterious hero.

4. Mix in a twisted, convoluted plot designed entirely to provide dramatic and sexy subplot.

It’s important that the plot, no matter how unlikely, must revolve around the hero saving the heroine. The villains do not necessarily need to have realistic or conceivable motivations for their actions. As long as the hero gets to save the day at least three or four times then your book will be profitable!

Please remember that the actual plot of your story needn’t truly begin until at least 350 pages into your story. The longer you can stall any interesting event occuring, the less thinking you will actually need to do.

Plus - FOR FREE - extras to help 'improve' your novel, the bottom line of your sales, and the expedient destruction of your soul.

-How to create a senseless mythology.

Mythology is more of a concept rather than something that needs to be respected or honoured. Vampires don’t need to refrain from daylight and angels no longer need to “fall” for good they can now be redeemed like us! The good news is that creating your own mythology, disregarding anything written before, allows you to twist and bastardize the plot beyond any recognizably interesting concept!

-Explanations as to why research could actually DAMAGE your profit!

Research takes time, energy and intelligence. Why do it? You’ve got ten fingers (presumably) and an attention span that extends past anything that could be compared to a gnat (even if it is only barely). Simply make it up as you go! For example: Ever is psychic. Research may tell us that this has something to do with receiving visions of the future or possibly commnicating with ghosts. Yet research is boring. Instead, she is imbued with the following powers that we guess can kind of be put under a psychic umbrella if we force enough information and logic out of our brains first: Mind reading, visions of near-present and future, personal life knowledge of any person she physically touches, seeing ghosts, seeing auras, literary osmosis from touching any written object, drawing the answers from any written question placed before her and any other supernatural abilities that seem convenient at the time.

-Detailed observations on why the Deus Ex Machina rocks.

Tying together a plot, even if you work to keep it as non-complicated or infantile as possible, is hard! It’s much easier to ignore tying together a number of plot points in any believable fashion and instead rely on some Deus Ex Machina to come in and take care of thoughtful planning for you!

-How to expand one, nonsensical idea into a series and why this is more profitable than originality!

Last, but not least! Ensure that your story is somewhat open ended so that you can create a series out of it! Research shows that people, even if they are intelligent enough to see that you’re writing is becoming progressively shittier and nonsensical, will often still purchase books in the series in order to find out what happens. So rather than creating a new story with new characters, simply beat the same old horse (it needn’t really be a horse – simply a pile of shit that’s been forced into a horse-like shape) for at least three or more books in order to squeeze every last cent out of the franchise that you can!

I’ve thought long and hard to deter­mine if there was a sin­gle aspect of this book that I even liked.

The char­ac­ters, the story-telling, the writ­inI’ve thought long and hard to deter­mine if there was a sin­gle aspect of this book that I even liked.

The char­ac­ters, the story-telling, the writ­ing, the themes… was there anything?

No. I tried but this book was painfully bad. I am not at all exag­ger­at­ing when I report that I fell asleep twice within the first twenty pages. This book was highly rem­i­nis­cent of both Buffy and Bleach. So what? Pretty much half the things pub­lished in YA these days are rem­i­nis­cent of Buffy. Unfor­tu­nately, you want to at least stand up a lit­tle in the com­par­i­son. This is not com­pa­ra­ble to Buffy. This is Buffy if Buffy weren’t Buffy but Dawn was Buffy.

Would you really want to watch Buffy if Dawnnwere Buffy?

I would like to take this oppor­tu­nity to remind peo­ple that there is noth­ing wrong with writ­ing a real­is­tic teenager. Ellie was cer­tainly real­is­tic – for a cer­tain type of teenager. She was vapid, shal­low, thought­less, com­pletely stuck in her own world and hope­lessly self-centered. This is a prob­lem for two reasons.

1. Nobody takes issue with this. Will men­tions twice that she doesn’t take her duties seri­ously enough but this is laughed off and treated by the text as if he takes them way too seriously.

2. The fuck­ing world relies on her and her alone.

Look, I don’t want to be nit­picky, but this girl has our lives in her hands. What I want to know is, is there a way that can…not be the case?

She’s so bor­ing, and the novel becomes bor­ing because of how bor­ing she is. This is sup­posed to be a book about an immor­tal war­rior girl who fights Reapers to save human­ity. It ends up being Gos­sip Girl with the occa­sional mon­ster. What con­tin­u­ally amazes me is that Ellie even has friends – because she has all of the wit and charm of a mouldy mop. Yet Req­ui­site Best­friend and Req­ui­site Friend­zone Fred­die just hang off every word she says.

We have Will who is one of those annoy­ing, brood­ing male roman­tic inter­ests. There’s not much to say about him because he’s like ALL brood­ing male roman­tic interests.

They could have over­come the insur­mount­able obsta­cles to their love and found a way to be together but he was too busy brood­ing and she was too busy shop­ping. Also the world ended along the way.

The writ­ing is bor­ing and the plot is painfully slow. The plot is barely there and Moul­ton com­pletely fails to marry the overtly long and com­pli­cated world build­ing with any kind of rea­son­able story arc. The only method she knows of con­vey­ing infor­ma­tion is in mas­sive info dump con­ver­sa­tions. After you fin­ish wad­ing through mean­ing­less, vapid social inter­ac­tion after mean­ing­less, vapid social inter­ac­tion you dis­cover that the few fight scenes there are in this book are painfully short and bor­ing. How am I sup­posed to care about the end of the world and the pos­si­bil­ity of a Reaper con­sum­ing my soul and con­demn­ing me to an eter­nity in hell when all Ellie fuck­ing cares about is her par­ties and social stand­ing? Oh, I’m sorry. She also cares about Mr Tall, dark, mys­te­ri­ous and broody. They spend a lot of time talk­ing. A. Lot. of. time.

It’s not like I expected her to go from 0-kickass in five sec­onds. But Ellie never at any point in this novel has a real rev­e­la­tion about the fact that she’s got a divine fuck­ing mis­sion here. And it’s not to attend par­ties. Think about it. Every time she’s going to the movies with friends or cof­fee, or a party, some­one is out there dying. And not just dying. Their soul is going to burn in hell and suf­fer eter­nal tor­ment and be used in Lucifer’s fight to con­demn ALL the souls. Every time Ellie decides to take a break and not be so seri­ous about her duties, which she does with alarm­ing fre­quency – a child, a woman, a man, SOMEONE will suf­fer for­ever for it. Every time she needs to inves­ti­gate some­thing or train and she says, “Oh, I’m busy at the movies tonight, can we do that in two days time?” she’s per­son­ally let­ting peo­ple down.

The hor­ror she expe­ri­ences every time she faces off against one of the Reapers (the hor­ror for which we are meant to sym­pa­thize as one of her strug­gles) yeah… well, she has both Will and a cou­ple of kick arse swords when she faces off against them. Think of the chil­dren who have had to face that hor­ror on their own and have not survived.

I have no sym­pa­thy or emo­tional invest­ment in her at all. Sure, she doesn’t have her mem­o­ries, but even in flash­backs she is com­pletely disin­gen­u­ous as an immor­tal war­rior fight­ing for human­ity. When Buffy got her mis­sion, she woke up fairly quickly and real­ized that her hopes and dreams and free time were all com­pletely incon­se­quen­tial com­pared to her mis­sion. Ellie did not have that real­iza­tion in this entire novel. Every­thing took a back­seat to her social life and school cal­en­dar. Every­thing. And this was not per­ceived to be a prob­lem. Not even by the nar­ra­tion which gives far more time and invests far more heav­ily in Ellie’s star-crossed lovelife than it does in the fact that there is an apoc­a­lypse coming.

"In this lifetime you're nothing more than you appear to be: a stupid, selfish, ignorant, spoiled little girl who thinks the world lives or dies on wh"In this lifetime you're nothing more than you appear to be: a stupid, selfish, ignorant, spoiled little girl who thinks the world lives or dies on whether she gets to go out with some good-looking boy at school. Even if your death wouldn't accomplish something so long-awaited, glorious, and grand, I'd still relish this moment, killing you."

I'm sorry, was I supposed to agree with absolutely everything the evil villain said and wait, with baited breath, for her to kill Lucinda Price painfully on my behalf?

This review has spoilers, by the way.

I have a list of rules for authors. Kind of like a checklist to ensure that their novel is going to be good. This book breaks them all. For posterity I'm going to list exactly which ones and why.

1. Don’t assume that your audience isn’t as smart as you.

Statistically speaking, you’re probably sitting on a fat, old average like the rest of us. Try to flex our grey matter. Please.

Lauren Kate thinks we're idiots. She really, really does. The prologue basically immediately informs the reader that Lucinda Price has been reincarnated and that black shadows follow her around ready to engulf her and take her away. The title of the book is Fallen, and at page 51 Daniel's last name is revealed to be Grigori. Anyone with half a brain already knows the gist of this story. That Daniel is a fallen angel and the Lucinda Price is his loved one reincarnated. yet 389 pages later, Lauren Kate pulls this out like it's some kind of massive reveal. No. Fuck no. Having your main character come to a conclusion almost four hundred pages after the reader is just an insult. You never learn more than this by the way. Other than a vague explanation as to the true function of the shadows - that is it. *Kat's attempts to pierce her own eyes a la Jocasta*

2. Don’t cover up bad writing and plot with a sexy, smoldering character.

Chances are they won’t be nearly sexy, or smoldering enough. It is painful to read badly written literature so just get it right the first time, please.

The writing in this novel is terrible, by the way. The editing is even worse. Perhaps the copy-editor had a hard time focusing on the text while her brain hemorrhaged as well. The sentences were choppy, they flowed poorly and the word choices were sometimes just plain weird.

5. Characterization is everything.

This doesn’t mean that your characters have to be likable at all times – or likable at all. But they have to be interesting, worth reading and fleshed out. They have to react to situations within their character or in relation to their personal growth and they have to reflect the plot and the changes in your story.

Characterization... where do I even start. *sighs* okay. Here we go, but this is going to be painful and filled with profanities.

Lucinda Price - If I ever saw this girl in the street, I would probably punch her in the face. I have never read such a useless, pathetic, tragically stupid female protagonist IN MY LIFE.

Luce's first encounter with Daniel results in him flipping her off. After that he ignores her, rejects her, accuses her of stalking him, ditches her, suggests that she is annoying, accuses her of being an intruder... the list goes on. GET A HINT, WOMAN! HE DOESN'T LIKE YOU! Only he does, and why they fall in love or want anything to do with each other is probably the only fucking mystery in this whole book. No wait, I scratch that. They DO belong together. They're both prats. I wouldn't wish them on anybody else.

She's a useless, stupid idiot and he's a selfish, moronic asshole. It must be true love. Daniel treats Luce like shit. Luce accepts Daniel's treatment of her (the fact that she does this causes ME to agree with Daniel's assessment), internalizes it, agonizes over it and still goes back for more. Again and again. The ONE time. I mean it. ONE FUCKING TIME that Luce sticks up to Daniel and tells him not to treat her like an idiot (the idiot that she is) he kisses her (probably just to shut her up - for which I'm eternally grateful) then she immediately stops requesting that he treat her like an adult and an equal and he goes right back to muttering cryptic things without explaining them because her puny female mind couldn't possibly comprehend them.

Oh. And ANOTHER thing! She obsessively stalks him, against all odds seeks him out again and again. Finally, when he DOES tell her the truth, what does she do? She runs away. That's right. Like a big fucking pansy, it turns out that her puny female mind really CAN'T handle information. I feel like muttering that scene out of anchorman where Ron Burgundy says:

"I'm a man who discovered the wheel and built the Eiffel Tower out of metal and brawn. That's what kind of man I am. You're just a woman with a small brain. With a brain a third the size of us. It's science."

Daniel is crap. Need I say more? Crappity crap crap CRAP! "Oh dear, I love this girl, but if I kiss her she's going to DIE!"

Well here's a fucking idea, dickhead, DON'T KISS HER! (Or don't kiss her on the lips *winks* at least not the ones on her face! *Chuckles evilly*) when she shows up, as she inevitably will, run away. Go to a club and pick up a chick and take her home for "coffee" or to show her your special angel wings. Whatever floats your boat. Don't stick around and interact with her and torture yourself by getting close.

Other characters in this book are two-dimensional. If there were such a concept as one-dimensional, I'm sure Kate would have striven to achieve that instead. They are stand in cardboard cut outs and easily forgettable and inconsequential.

6. Your story needs to have an actual story.

It needs to have conflict, resolution; climax, dénouement; beginning and an end. They don’t always need to occur in the standard order, but something needs to happen.

Can you read that, Lauren Kate? Something needs to fucking happen! Not just 401 pages of stalking! That's not a fucking story!

7. Research.

Know what the hell you’re writing about and put the work and research into your story. Nothing is more annoying then reading a book about an Anglican Preacher in the seventeenth century burning witches, when you know perfectly well how very historically inaccurate that is.

This author knows nothing about angels. Or the Bible. Or religion. She shows no concept for the Biblical nature of angels, their real function, how they differ from humans. It's. Just. So. Fail. Kill me now. I felt like putting on my sexy librarian outfit, pulling out my cain (hyuk hyuk) and giving a very interesting instruction about the Bible in both its modern context and the times in which it is historically acknowledged to be written as well as the spiritual nature or angels and demons and heaven. Probably would have been a lot more fun than reading this book because I look very sexy in my outfits and I give great feedback to my students!

And finally - the last rule that this story broke:

8. Consider what message your story is telling.

Remember that usually, and historically, stories don’t usually exist just for the hell of it. Stories have messages and meaning. They teach us and give us a perspective on life. Storytelling carries a great responsibility because there are few things more emotive to people than stories.

My husband and I have been together for seven years now and I can confidently say I love him. I love him. I think about him. I know him. Most of all, I know WHY I love him and I know WHY he's perfect for me and why nobody else on this planet would ever do.

Fallen seems to think it has something to say about Love. Albeit, I wonder if even it knows what its opinion on love is. Maybe that love conquers all? No, not really since in the book it doesn't. Maybe that love is eternal? Well, yeah maybe. An eternal pain-in-the-ass is the theme it really seems to be going for.

However, I hate the version of love in this book. It's some mystical, unexplainable tie in this book. Something that just is without any further information provided. I can't help but compare Daniel's alleged "sacrifice" in losing Luce over and over again because he keeps selfishly kissing her (when he kisses her she dies apparently) with real love. If he really loved her then he'd leave as soon as he caught a glimpse of her. He'd move across the country. He'd keep running from her until the end of time for her own good.

When I compare it to how completely unselfish my husband is with his love, I can never excuse either Daniel or Luce for their actions.

The relationship in this book is so unbalanced. There is SO much information that Daniel never gives her because she just needs to trust him and apparently her fragile little female mind won't be able to handle it. Then of course, there is the complete and utter power imbalance in their relationship. This book is almost an argument against feminism. To make the boy love you, you must accept his treatment and patiently wait out his scorn and derision. You're supposed to obsess over the boy of your dreams and imagine who he is in complete contradiction to the person he's shown you to be. Somehow this is supposed to be romantic. This is supposed to be real love.

Well, I live real love. I live it every day in its very boring, mundane existence. I live with my soulmate and we go day from day. This book is nothing like love. This book knows obsession, hormones and drama. It knows nothing about love. It is devoid of respect, attention, tenderness and the freely giving love that I know to be real.

The back of the book has a teaser for the next book stating:

"Can you bear the... TORMENT

The next book in the Fallen series by Lauren Kate"

The answer is: No. I really, really can't bear it. I'll leave it to people who don't mind having their braincells sucked into a black hole of anti-feminist propaganda.

Once upon a time there was a young woman with a dream. A dream that women the world over could live in freedom as equals. That they would have the rigOnce upon a time there was a young woman with a dream. A dream that women the world over could live in freedom as equals. That they would have the right that many women have been denied for hundreds of years, possibly more - to live healthy, happy lives with partners who love and respect them and provide for their needs.

Then that young woman read Dark Prince - and her dreams were shattered.

Actually, this is all a lie because that young woman, the woman writing this review (yes! It is I!) didn't actually finish this twisted garble of a mess.

Now I know, I KNOW that I'm not always easy going on books. I have a standard (though considering the fact that I have read all ten of the BDB books may convince people otherwise but that aside...) I know I like the writing to be of a certain standard and for there to be characters of a certain quality and a plotline and world that has a certain depth and or immersive quality.

From what I read, this is less a novel and a How To Guide. How To Travel To A Distant Country And Ensure Your Body is Never Found After You Get Abducted, Abused and Killed.

First and simple step:

1. Do everything Raven Whitney does in the first chapter of her book. No, I'm not kidding. That really is her name. Aptly so as she has long, silky raven hair (yes it's referred to as such in this book) which begs the question of what her parents were going to do if she'd been born with red hair. Or if, she had been born with black hair, it had all fallen out three weeks later (as it did with me) and grown back blonde.

2. Romanticize and imagine men like Prince Mikhail Dubrinsky are sexy and possibly good life mates.

They're not.

"But surely, Kat," you say, "you can't have too much to say about a book when you only read twenty-two pages into it."

You'd better believe I do!

The book begins with Mikhail, lonely and contemplating ending his own life. The following excerpt was actually published by the way. I'm not making this shit up for giggles. If I were it would probably be better:

"Grief overwhelmed him, consumed him. He lifted his head and roared out his pain like the wounded animal he was. He could no longer bear to be alone."

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So our female protagonist, who has a psychic ability to connect with people mentally, contacts him to cheer him up.

He contacts back and love blooms.

Okay, sounds alright, right? WRONG! WRONG, SO FREAKIN' WRONG!

Our two protagonists psychically meet on page two. He's sexually assaulting her with his mind by page 8.

But it's okay, because Mikhail is a studly stud. He's an immortal, rich and extremely handsome. Petty things like laws and personal boundaries and respect for women mean nothing to him, and they shouldn't mean anything to you either - this is the message of the book.

By page eleven, she has decided that he is mega creepy and decides to escape. He psychically contacts her to tell her that he knows that she wants to run away and it just isn't going to fly and that he can and will force his will on her.

Now, at this point the correct response would be:

A) Leave.B) Tell him to go get fucked and that if he so much as comes near you, you will scream bloody murder and have him arrested for assault.C) Give the psychopath your full name and casually head down to dinner.

I leave you to guess which option our fuckwit heroine chooses.

By page fifteen another man has casually placed his hand on our female protagonist's leg and invited her outside. Correct, normal and balanced reaction from the male would be:

A) Realize that this woman is a perfect stranger and therefor perfectly entitled to receive attention from other men.B) Decide to stake your claim next time you see her and offer to be her one and only - hoping earnestly that she will choose you.C) Use your psychic powers to attempt to kill him - stopping only when the female protagonist desperately entreats you to stop.

By page seventeen our chauvinistic-pig and emotionally abusive asshole male protagonist has the female protagonist in his arms and is running through the forest to his home with her.

Raven, being the clever and clearly cautious little monkey that she is asks, "Did you kidnap me or rescue me?"

Oh wait, honey... I think I know the answer to this one! *Kat thinks very, very hard*

She tells him quite clearly on page nineteen that she wants to go home... several times.

His response? "You can not fight me, little one."

This is what he calls her, by the way. I don't know about you but if a man starts to call me 'little one' as opposed to, oh I don't know... MY NAME - then he is going to get one serious round-house kick to the face.

On page twenty, when any normal and sane person would have taken the first opportunity to give him a swift kick to the cajones and run like hell, the dumbest character I have ever come across...no, wait...the dumbest character I have ever come across enters his house of her own free will.

She ignores all of his past behaviour because he somehow understands her. He somehow connects to her. He reaches deep inside her to a place that has never been touched by anyone else before... I'd like to reach deep in and touch her BRAIN because that obviously hasn't been touched before either!

Why is this crap romantic? Why? Why does this spawn a series that sells lots of copies and makes the author lots of money?

The writing is not purple prose. It is beyond purple prose. Purple prose would be EMBARRASSED to be seen with this writing. Everything about it is bad.

If you've seen The Iron Giant (Lord, if you haven't GO WATCH NOW!) then you'll know that in that movie is a giant robot made of iron. Yet this robot has a thousand times more personality and charisma than our much touted and manly Prince Mikhail.

He's a robot. Some kind of space robot given a caveman's brain by an alien species intent to discover if stupidity in the human race is indeed limitless and thus perhaps mined as a kind of fuel for their spaceships. This book was written by these aliens to test us and see how ridiculous we'll go.

However, if they have any success with this method - then I won't entirely argue with their plan because after all, by the laws of supply and demand - it'd be cheaper to fill up my car with stupidity then it would with gas....more

What, so you see a hot chick walk into a diner and you think it's perfectly acceptable to:

a) go up and creep her out to the point where her ninty-year-old grandma and waitress friend are physically attacking you.b) Assault the ninty-year-old grandma and waitress friend or let your friends do it.c)Kidnap ninty-year-old grandma AND object of your affectionandd) Mind rape object of your affection.

I'm about to type the six words that I almost never say: I. Could. Have. Written. It. Better.

I've read a lot of crap books, but I don't think I've eveI'm about to type the six words that I almost never say: I. Could. Have. Written. It. Better.

I've read a lot of crap books, but I don't think I've ever used these words in a review before. Maybe because I've never, ever had such a strong compulsion to literally pick up a book and start rewriting it.

The thing is, the idea is FANTASTIC (By fantastic I mean sexy as hell and full of schmexing possibilities) and yet, it's such a let down. I can almost imagine some editor person sitting Jill Myles down and their conversation would go something like this:

Editor: Jill, you have to write this idea! It's fantastic! You'll be a rich and famous author!Jill Myles: Fantastic! I'm getting right on this! Nothing is going to hold me back! I shall spread my little typing wings and soar!Editor: Before you go, I should warn you - the only way you'll fail is if you make the female protagonist so agonizingly stupid that your readers will ache to bore a rusty screwdriver through their skull to make a hole through which they can pour bleach.Jill Myles: *Too busy imagining swimming through a pool of money to listen* Annoying, stupid protagonist...sure... whatever...bye!

IF ONLY SHE'D LISTENED!

Okay, so the story starts out with fat, frumpy, Museum Docant, Jackie waking up in a dumpster. She's had a helluva one night stand and upon disentangling herself with what can only be assumed as a traumatized dumpters, she runs into the very man she'd had wild, passionate sex with, Noah.

She is then told that she had literally been a dead lay (bwhahahaha!) and that because she was bitten by a vampire, and had slept with a fallen angel, she would now be a succubus.

Calling him a crazy loon shortly after drooling over his shoulder length blond hair, toned abs and GINORMOUS Johnson, she stalks out.

By the next morning she's lost a ton of weight, become beautiful and grown an incredible pair of bossoms. It's at about this time, I deduce, that the energy going into creating the Tits of Glory caused her brain to shrink, whither and die away.

She immediately sets out to find Noah for explanations, has sex with him in a church and departs with his darling Succubus friend, Remy. One of the first things they tell her is not to meet up with any vampires (in case one of them is her master), don't make any deals with Angels and avoid fallen angels as well.

So naturally she runs off within five minutes and makes a deal with the first angel she meets and wonders why everyone doesn't think this is the biggest stroke of genius since Thomas Edison invented a Ghost Busting machine. So AGAINST the EXPRESS orders of her Master Fallen Angel, she and the other "Suck" head off to super sleuth the vampires and find out what they're up to so that Jackie can be free.

Now, let me give you a frame of reference for how bad their sleuthing is. In 1960 French diplomat, Bernard Bouriscot went to China. The Chinese, not being completely stupid, assigned a spy to him. He began a relationship with Shi Pei Pu who he divulged every single state secret to as soon as he could. Just before he was about to leave the country, Shi Pei Pu who recognized how incredibly gullible and useful he was for her career, informed him that she was pregnant. Four years later he returned to greet his child and lived with Shi Pei Pu and his "son" for the next sixteen or so years.

Now, I know that doesn't sound precisely riveting or spy like, after all, it's only twenty odd years of living a lie as a spy, gathering all the secret documents you like from a man who is just incredibly unobservant. Well, that's until you learn that Shi Pei Pu was really a man. Yes. A man. Bouriscot did not discover this until he took his happy family back to his homeland of France where he was immediately told something along the lines of, "Dude... that chic's a dude..."

Go ahead. Wiki that shit. It's all true!

So whilst I'm not holding Jackie & Co up to Shi Pei Pu's remarkable standard (No doubt his twenty year reign of Employee Spy of the Month was unchallenged and well deserved) I was kind of expecting a better plan than: walk into a club full of vampires, completely unprotected and get busted so quickly as spies that they were barely in the doors before one of the halfwits mumbled, "Der... do you think this is such a good idea?"

But it's okay for Jackie because she is not at all alone in the stupidity stakes. She has a contender in the form of the Vampire Queen who immediately reveals her ENTIRE plan to Jackie and insists that Jackie now needs to go find the mysterious relic that the Queen is seeking.

Sure. You've had your entire vampire crew searching for this one historical item for HOW LONG NOW? And you think some twit whose idea of a clever plan is "On the cound of three... Go!" will do better? Clearly SOMEONE has never read Peter's Evil Overlord List

Oh, and the relic that Jackie has to retrieve, actually BELONGS to the Vampire Queen and is in exactly the last place the Queen left it, by the way. And the Queen even shows up at a convenient time to provide Jackie with instructions on how to retrieve it.

SUUUUUUuuuuuuuurrrrrreeee...

I can totally see how this woman has ruled for over four millenia. She's a criminal mastermind, that one!

Now this seemed to be part of the book where Jackie, whose dream it is to be an archeaologist, should have really shined. She's going to an achealogical site, IN EGYPT, and doing all kinds of history shit. Clearly, this would be right up her alley. Yet Jackie approaches it will all the finesse of a college bimbo coaxing a free bear out of a fratboy at a party. She knows nothing about anything and any hopes I had of reading a story about a mature, intelligent twenty-six year old woman swiftly blew out the window.

I could go on. Really. I could complain all day. From the "mystery" involving her vampire master to the fact that an archaelogist who supposedly has several degrees is so ridiculously incompetent in every single area of life, including intellectual pursuits that I want to barf, to the fact that she somehow demands that she shouldn't HAVE to pick between two lovers, and that it's really the mature thing for them to both get over expecting any kind of monogamy out of someone they, unfathomly, honestly care about. How about Jackie's unexplainable anger toward Remy for being a Porn star? Why? Why does she feel betrayed that the woman she just met, who is a succubus, is a porn star?

I put this challenge out. Using every single plot point (Ie, Jackie goes here, Jackie meets this person, Jackie does this... etc) and the main themes, theory and concept behind this book, I could have done so much better. Except for the sex scenes - those were the only reason I finished reading this book because... *fans self* okay, they were hot.

So if you're going to read, check your brain out at the door and just enjoy the smutfest that dances past, scantily clad and overly bussomed. That's about all this book has to offer.

**BTW at their final size, Jackie's boobs are measured as 34DD. This is apparently huge and has every man in the vicinity writing love Haiku's to her Tits of Glory. I'm sorry, but I actually HAVE 34DD and a hot ass body - yet no men have ever flocked around my breasts like mosquitos to a bug zapper! Fail!

***Okay, I can now no longer complain that no poems have ever been written about my breasts. Manny has kindly posted his brilliant sonnet to my "girls" here! Enjoy!...more

Okay, so some of the girls asked that I do a review of the Anita Blake series because I mentioned some things that intrigued them.

It's not a finishedOkay, so some of the girls asked that I do a review of the Anita Blake series because I mentioned some things that intrigued them.

It's not a finished series and usually I would reserve judgment on a series until it comes to its conclusion just in case the author was going somewhere I wasn't expecting.

Kind of like that scene out of Austin Powers where Austin's in the bathroom stall with a bad guy and a big Texan man is in the next stall and can only see Austin's feet. He hears Austin Powers grunting as he fights the guy, saying, "Who does Number 2 work for?"

The Texan guy, thinking that Austin is taking a crap, decides to pitch in and give encouragement to someone who is obviously struggling.

"That's right! Show that turd who's boss!"

Well, that's what reading Anita Blake is like. You're sitting in the next stall with someone who, nine or so books ago you thought was really nice and normal. Suddenly they start to struggle and you want to be encouraging, or you want to tell them to give up, take a laxative and come back later. The thing is, at first you're wary to because maybe something else is going on. Maybe a brilliant struggle for life and death is happening but you just can't see it. Maybe at the end of the series, you're going to come out, see what's left over in the stall and proudly proclaim:

Jesus Christ, what did you eat?

The first 10 books are filled with mystery and intrigue. They've got great characters and really interesting storylines. They've got action. DAMN have they got action! Obsidian Butterfly, in my opinion, the last good book is such a thriller in so many ways.

They're a little bit sexy and you find yourself wishing a little more sexy would come your way because it's kind of really hawt.

But then something happens after book 10. It happens so quickly that you're kind of in a headspin, looking around going, "Am I still reading the right series? Have they printed a different book under the same name?"

Because suddenly, they're no longer mysteries. There's no longer any real edge-of-your-seat suspense. Suddenly, you think you're going to go a little crazy if you read another freakin' sex scene. Suddenly the writing is so poor, so transparent! The characters are so unlikable and so unrelatable that they might as well be from another galaxy.

You're just walking along one day, admiring the view, when suddenly - OH CRAP! ANITA JUST HAD SEX WITH A WERELEOPARD IN ANIMAL FORM!!!!

You're minding you're own business, enjoying a cup of coffee when - FUCK! SHE JUST HAD A THREE WAY WITH TWO MEN! ANALSEXANALSEXANALSEX!!!

You were about to get ready for work when, out of nowhere - CROTCHBUCKETS! SHE'S JUST HAD A MASSIVE GROUP ORGY AND BEEN 'SPITTED' BY TWO MEN! FAAARK!!!

Then you wonder if you can still walk into a church after reading these books. They become so appallingly bad that you wear them like a badge of pride. "Oh, you think THAT book is shocking? Has she ever had sex with an animal while a whole room full of people look on?" "Oh! You think THAT'S shocking? Did that character ever have seven consecutive boyfriends and nine casual fucks at the same time?" "Really? That character is THAT powerful? Did they ever defeat an evil villain with the power of their crotch alone?"

Speaking of which, this is one of the major, MAJOR flaws of Anita Blake. Her Cooter. The Crotch of Doom as some of the girls call it. Almost every man she comes across, she has to sleep with. And then he loves her. He's addicted to her. He can't get enough of her. It's ridiculous. That girl had better have a TV screen in her forehead, beer leaking from her nipples and a bellybutton that dispenses sandwiches. Otherwise I just ain' buyin' it!

She amasses power like it's spare change. She goes from being a powerful animator of zombies, to a necromancer who can control ALL dead things (including vampires), as well as being a lupa (Queen of the Werewolves, Namira-Ra (Queen of the wereleopards) having six strains of were in her but none of the downsides like actually changing. She becomes a succubus. She is a human servant part of a powerful Triumvate. Then she makes her OWN triumvate with her own Vampire to call and an animal to call. It's just RIDICULOUS! You're wondering where it stops!

This stops her from having any character growth. I thought Anita Blake's flaws were going to be dealt with at some point. I thought her pride, arrogance, lack of impulse control, insecurities etc were going to be addressed through circumstances and a learning curve. No. She just becomes so powerful that it doesn't matter anymore.

And the books are just basically sex. That's all that happens. Everyone has sex. All the time. And then they all argue. A lot. Anita wears a skirt, so three out of seven of her boyfriends take issue with that and then argue with Anita and amongst themselves. Anita chips a nail, so at least five of her boyfriends go mental and start blaming each other.

I really don't know why this mess continues. It's beyond ridiculous. I think LKH just wants to see how much she can shock us now. What more can she do to play with our heads? So Anita has brain sex with another woman. So Anita has sex with a sixteen year old. It doesn't matter anymore. In the end, Anita never takes responsibility for ANY of it. She never really sits down and says: "Regardless of everything - I want to be with THIS person and THAT person. I want to do THESE crazy sex acts because that would get me hawt. Then I want to try it with five men at once."

No. It's always the situation. She's always "made" to do it. This makes me lose so much respect for both the character and LKH. You want fantasy smut in your story? Fine. Put it in there. But don't make it so that the character never CHOOSES the fantasy smut. Don't make it so that each and every time, the character is forced by circumstances to do these crazy, smutty things. WTH?

And lastly, don't push feminist bullshit down our throats when every other woman in this series is either a bitch, psycho, cow or pathetically weak! If Anita was a real woman than she'd stand up to a little damn competition. Instead she fights with every other woman around like it's some kind of damn pissing competition.

I kept thinking that maybe LKH was behind that stall, doing something that didn't seem apparent to me. From what I could see so far, she was struggling to get something out. I kept wanting to yell at her for it, but then I thought, maybe there's something epic happening. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it's just because I can't see enough from my stall in the bathroom of life.

No, my friends. In this instance, she's not wrestling a man into a toilet bowl for information. She's not leading us through some epic, well thought out drama that's going to unfold brilliantly if we just hang on and keep reading.

She's just shitting with us. Well and truly, and enjoying the money we pay her for the pleasure of reading this crap....more

Okay, so let me get this out s***Warning: won't contain spoilers cause I didn't get far enough to give a fuck and discover anything worth spoiling.***

Okay, so let me get this out straight. I have never NOT finished a book before. Okay, I'm lying. The History of Sexuality Volume 1 by Michel Foucault remains unfinished as does Villette by Charlotte Bronte. Why? Because they were boring.

Because, as I read them, I wanted to take a cheese grater to my skull and rub vigorously just to have something to do!

But I have never NOT finished a Young Adult paranormal novel before. And I've read some BAAAAAD books. But I didn't finish this book because it goes beyond bad. It makes the History of Sexuality seem amazingly interesting and colourful.

To be fair to Ms. Clare, I was not actually "reading" her novel so much as listening to the Audiobook. The Narrator, Graynor, did a particularly craptastic job.

To be fair to Ms. Graynor, she didn't have much to work with. I tuned her out, I swear, I was focusing on the actual prose, taking in the story, trying to get interested. But the writing was terrible. It was painful. The characters were annoying.

Now, I've been fair to Ms. Clare and I've been fair to Mr. Graynor. So there's only you left to be fair to now.

And in order to do that, I have to admit that I wasn't EXPECTING to like this book. I was, however, expecting to be pleasantly surprised, and I'll explain why.

Many years ago, Cassandra Clare was Cassandra Clair - a VERY popular FF author in the Harry Potter and LoTR circles. I actually greatly enjoyed her Draco Trilogy. I've read it many times. I had heard that this book was very similar to DT and so I was expecting to find it to be a guilty pleasure. Something my moral compass told me to leave behind, but that I would actually enjoy too much to do so. But I was wrong.

Yeah, she plagiarized that work and I won't really go into it except to post a link because in the end, I'm not reviewing her, I'm reviewing her work.

But here's the problem. Jace is really just Draco from DT. Simon is really just Ron and Harry amalgamated into one. Clary is really just Ginny. The bad guys seems too much like good ol'Voldie. The plot is painfully similar to DT. It was like reading her old work all over again. And I think, because she was really just redressing her old characters, she didn't even both to give them any growth in this story.

To be honest, I didn't read far because the writing was boring (oh my lord, the similes! Someone save me from them) and poorly constructed; the characters were boring and poorly constructed and the plot was boring and poorly constructed.

*This post was inspired by the fan­tas­tic videos over at www.howitshouldhaveended.com. Ital­i­cized text is the orig­i­nal pHow I Would Have Ended It

*This post was inspired by the fan­tas­tic videos over at www.howitshouldhaveended.com. Ital­i­cized text is the orig­i­nal pub­li­cized text from the book and is entirely the work of Becca Fitzpatrick.

This ren­di­tion is entirely satire. It is not meant to offend and I mean no dis­cour­tesy. I rec­og­nize that authors put a lot of time and work into their nov­els and I am not try­ing to dis­re­spect that. Writ­ing a novel is hard work and is some­thing I have never done and I cer­tainly don’t think I could do a bet­ter job. I am sim­ply, with light-hearted inten­tion, using humour and imag­i­na­tion to spark book dis­cus­sion and fun and point out some issues I had with the novel.

And lastly, please don’t sue me. I have no money. And I have chil­dren to feed. And I have a cat to feed as well. You wouldn’t want a cat to go with­out food, would you? Also, pretty please with a cherry on top. I’ll be your friend?*

I was backed up against the counter, my palms dig­ging into the edge. “You’re mad because I didn’t go to Del­phic.” I raised one shaky shoul­der. “Why Del­phic, Patch? It’s Sun­day night. Del­phic will be clos­ing soon. Any spe­cial rea­son you wanted me to drive to a dark, soon-to-be deserted amuse­ment park?”

He walked toward me until he was stand­ing close enough that I could see his black eyes beneath his ball cap.

“Dabria told me you have to sac­ri­fice me to get a human body,” I said.

Patch was quiet a moment. “And you think I’d go through with it?”

I swal­lowed. “Then it’s true?”

Our eyes locked. “It has to be an inten­tional sac­ri­fice. Sim­ply killing you won’t do it.”

“Are you the only per­son who can do this to me?”

“No, but I’m prob­a­bly the only per­son who knows the end result, and the only per­son who would attempt it. It’s the rea­son I came to school. I had to get close to you. I needed you. It’s the rea­son I walked into your life.”

I looked at him for a moment, his intense gaze shoot­ing through me as I con­sid­ered the infor­ma­tion he’d just confirmed.

“Okay,” I said, straight­en­ing up and slip­ping out from his over­bear­ing pres­ence to put some space between us.

“Well, you’ve pretty much admit­ted that you were going to kill me, in a very per­sonal way, might I add. I think that jus­ti­fies a quick and hasty exit,” I spat at him, straight­en­ing my out­fit in indig­na­tion and stand­ing up to him with more con­fi­dence than I felt.

Patch splut­tered for a moment, blink­ing his eyes dis­be­liev­ingly. “But… I wasn’t… I mean…” he looked lost for a moment before vis­i­bly col­lect­ing him­self and slip­ping back into his usual, con­fi­dent demeanor. “You want me to come clean, I will. I’ll tell you every­thing. Who I am and what I’ve done. Every last detail. I’ll dig it all up, but you have to ask. You have to want it. You can see who I was, or you can see who I am now. I’m not good,” he said, pierc­ing me with eyes that absorbed all light but reflected none, “but I was worse.”

I arched an eye­brow and stared at him in dis­be­lief. “Well, I have a dif­fer­ent plan, Patch. Mainly revolv­ing around the fact that you pur­posely entered my life in order to stalk, harass and mur­der me for your nefar­i­ous schemes. So I think this would be a pretty good time for you to quit the mys­te­ri­ous bull­shit and be extremely trans­par­ent about every­thing I need to know. I mean, you haven’t even assured me, at this point, that you’re not actu­ally going to kill me. And I don’t mean to harp on this point – but that’s a pretty impor­tant facet of this dis­cus­sion for me.”

He stalked close to me again, affect­ing a brood­ing, intense expres­sion and caus­ing my heart to thud painfully in my chest. His boots were flush with the toes of my ten­nis shoes. “I’m not going to kill you, Nora. I don’t kill peo­ple who are impor­tant to me. And you top the list.”

I exerted con­sid­er­able effort to con­tain an eye­roll, but it slipped through at the last minute. “You’re imping­ing on my pri­vate space,” I said, inch­ing back­ward in dis­taste.

Patch gave a barely-there smile. “Imping­ing? This isn’t the SAT, Nora.”

I pressed my finger-tips to his chest. He glanced at the spot where we touched and then back up to my eyes. “If my vocab­u­lary is caus­ing you dis­tress,” I whis­pered huskily, look­ing up to him with a wicked smile on my face, “then let me express my dis­plea­sure in the only way you seem to understand.”

Patch’s brow creased in con­fu­sion a moment before my heel came down hard on his instep. He hopped back in pain, look­ing at me with both hurt and bewil­der­ment. “Per­sonal bound­aries, Patch. Respect them when I ask you to. See, I have this rule about let­ting would-be mur­der­ers within ten feet of my very stab-able body. Now, tell me. Is Dabria going to be com­ing after me.”

Patch, mirac­u­lously less inter­ested in encroach­ing on my per­sonal space, shrugged from where he was. “You could take her, Angel,” he said. “I’ve seen both of you in action,” he looked down at his injured foot and winked, “and my bet’s on you. You don’t need me for that.”

“I don’t think I need you for much of any­thing,” I sneered, turn­ing on him and head­ing to the door.

“Door’s locked,” he said from behind me. “And we have unfin­ished business.”

“Lis­ten, the only unfin­ished busi­ness we have is between my knee and your crotch if you come near me again.”

The cell phone in my pocket rang to life. “In fact,” I said as I pulled it out, “you’re going to go away and I don’t ever, EVER want to see your broody, mopey face again. You have for­ever cured me of bad­boys. When this is over, it’s strictly account­ing nerds and bank­ing types for me! This was absolutely the WORST way to pun­ish my mother for her absence, assert my inde­pen­dence and act out my grief from los­ing my father. I should have just stolen money from my mother’s purse and bought alco­hol like a NORMAL teenager!” I pressed the accept but­ton on my cell. “What?!”

“Babe!” Vee said. We had a bad con­nec­tion, the crack­led of sta­tic cut­ting across her voice. “Where are you?”

“Where are you? Are you still with Elliot and Jules?” I flat­tened a hand against my free ear to hear better.

“I’m at school. We broke in,” she said in a voice that was naughty to per­fec­tion. “We want to play hide-and-seek but don’t have enough peo­ple for two teams. So… do you know of a fourth per­son who could come play with us?”

An inco­her­ent voice mum­bled in the background.

“Elliot wants me to tell you that if you don’t come be his part­ner –hang on- what?” Vee said into the background.

Elliot’s voice came on. “Nora? Come play with us. Oth­er­wise, there’s a tree in the com­mon area with Vee’s name on it.”

I groaned in dis­be­lief and promised myself that if I sur­vived this, I’d choose friends who weren’t com­plete and utter dumbasses.

“Who was that?” Patch asked.

I sighed heav­ily. “That was my brain­less, drop­kick friend phon­ing me to pass along the mes­sage that Elliot and Jules are going to mur­der her vio­lently unless I go meet up with them.”

“What was that you were say­ing about never again see­ing my broody, mop­ing face?” Patch asked, his con­fi­dence returned tri­fold and an enor­mous grin spread across his face.

I resisted the urge to smash my face into the tiled wall repeat­edly. “Oh, shut up and come on. I’ll prob­a­bly end up nobly sac­ri­fic­ing myself and sav­ing your ass any­way, so cut the shit, Patch.”

He unlocked and opened the door, let­ting me out ahead of him.

“Still going to set­tle for an accoun­tant or banker?”

“You had bet­ter be so damn awe­some in bed or I am going to stab you through the eye with your own lit­er­al­ized ego.”

“I have ninety-nine prob­lems, Nora, but per­for­mance in the sack is NOT one of them.”